Awakening
by kijunshi
Summary: Sasuke awakens suddenly 30 years in the future, under the worst possible circumstances. Facing an uncertain future, can he manage to make his name in a ninja world that has changed beyond recognition? *spoilers until chapter 477*
1. Chapter 1

He was at his limit, but not done yet.

Susano'o's hand smashed through the melted wall, Sasuke gasping for breath as the acid mist dissipated— the remains of Zetsu fell off him, as he clawed his way out of the deathtrap the Mizukage had set for him--

"I can't believe a kid like you killed Deidara," said an unfamiliar, squeaky voice. Sasuke looked up, agonizing pain shooting through his pounding head, to see an old man seemingly floating in air. The Tsuchikage. "I have nothing against you, but the ninja world wants you dead... see you."

The small white cube he was holding in his hands expanded quite suddenly.

Sasuke remembered nothing more.

…

There was a woman.

Sasuke saw her as he looked through the glass (glass?). She had long thick black hair, which she twined lazily between two fingers. She saw him looking at her, and her eyes widened.

"Who--" Sasuke began, only to realize his lungs were full of water. The last thing he remembered before all went black was her face, and her eyes, dark and wide and staring.

She reminded him of his mother. Or was it Itachi?

…

"Chouno!"

Sasuke heard a voice as if it was far away. Far was good. Far meant that he didn't have to get up, didn't have to move. Far meant he didn't have to fight just right now.

"Chouno! I broke the code! I—never mind." The voice was coming closer, as well as an odd sort of clicking sound he didn't immediately recognize.

"Keep trying," came a voice, seemingly even closer. _Closing in on my position,_ thought Sasuke. _Damn._ He was going to have to move soon, activate the Sharingan, and prepare to fight. "I think the data on this one is going to be very important."

"I know! Hush so I can try something else!" The annoyance was clear in the farther voice. True to form, the closer one said nothing more – but Sasuke could feel his presence now, getting closer. _A ninja._

The ninja leaned over Sasuke, breathing softly. The whoosh of air barely brushed Sasuke's skin. Two feet, three inches. Well within arm's length. Sasuke could reach up and take his head off. Surprisingly careless, too. All the better.

"He really is just like him." The ninja spoke as if in awe. "_Uchiha Sasuke_."

Sasuke opened his eyes, and exploded into action.

He missed.

The first thing he saw, crystal clear as day, was a plump face surrounded by brown hair--Akimichi Chouji?--surprised expression at sharp nails grazing past his jugular. Then the world went blurry with indescribable pain.

"It's alive!!" he heard the screech from the other ninja as every single muscle in his body screamed as if needles had been jammed through them, and he screamed with them.

"AAAAAUUUGGH!" The world spun, Chouji had sprung back with surprising speed, and Sasuke managed to get one thought through the spasms of his body as he slumped back down to the floor: _The ninja of Leaf have come to get me. Naruto can't be far--_

"Stay calm, Shika!" shouted Chouji. "Get ready to run for help--"

_Fuck Naruto. _Sasuke slammed one of his hands onto the ground, enduring the pain, enduring even the crunch of glass beneath his palm. _I'll never submit to the Elders! Danzo will die at my __hands,_ today--

MANGEKYO SHARINGAN!

Everything turned a roaring, howling white.

…

This time when he woke, the first thing Sasuke felt was the pain.

It came on gradually, not unlike pins and needles in one's feet after a long period of _seiza_, but it got worse and worse and _worse._ Sasuke had to bite his lip, to keep from any undignified sounds escaping, as the pain wrenched up and down every limb.

At least it let him know that they were all still there.

The next thing he felt was cold, seeping into him from the cold, hard floor he was lying on. He was on his left side with both arms stretched above his head. Tied. _Shit. _

"He's awake," a voice came from above him. Well out of reach this time. "What does the file say, Shika?"

"Hold on..."

_Where's Karin? _thought Sasuke. He could still hear her screaming his name, the last sound before he'd blacked out. Then again, if they had him in custody, she was either hiding or captured too. Suigetsu, Juugo – he had left them, back at the samurai battle. Who knew if they were even still alive?

Once again, he was alone.

But it was allright. He was Uchiha Sasuke, after all.

Sasuke tried to turn his head towards Chouji, pain making his movements jerky. "Akimichi," he said, voice breaking and skipping unintentionally. He coughed, spat what might have been blood, and opened his eyes. The sitting figure of a man with long brown hair came slowly into view, Sasuke's left eye focusing before his right. His face wore a surprised expression, mouth slightly open as if he had intended to speak and been interrupted.

"No name. Patient number 16." A boy with spiky hair pulled back in an upright ponytail – Nara Shikamaru? - was sitting behind him, hunched over a computer terminal. He turned around to reveal swirly glasses on his face – glasses? "Oh, it woke up. Should I go run for help now?"

Sasuke forced what may very well might have been killing intent into his vocal cords until they felt like steel. "Untie me. Now. Or you will regret it." That sounded much better.

"How did you know my--" Chouji stopped, shook his head. "No, Shika. Keep reading the report."

"Don't you fucking ignore me," snarled Sasuke, rage beginning to overtake even the pain. He tugged at the bonds holding his hands – tight as only a ninja could make them. "I won't go back to Konoha so easily."

"Blood type AB, weight 51.4 kilograms, height 165 centimeters," Shikamaru read off in the background in a voice Sasuke was sure hadn't been _quite_ that annoying in the Academy. "Entered the facility on July 16th last year." He looked over his shoulder again. "Is he talking? Is he supposed to be talking?"

"Keep reading, Shika," said Chouji with a tone of steel in his voice, and Sasuke's mind was distracted for just a second. _Was this the way their relationship used to be?_ Three years really did change everything. He snorted to himself.

"You may have gotten slightly more impressive, Akimichi, but you're no match for me." Especially not now that he had the Mangekyo. He wondered if he should just use Amaterasu now. "If you value your life, and the continuation of your family line, you'll release me immediately."

Chouji's eyes were on him, calculating – calculating? He hadn't known the fat boy had it in him – and in the background Shikamaru kept talking. "It's all technical now. You said not to read the technical stuff out loud, right?"

"Summarize," said Chouji in a tone Sasuke was sure that he had _never _heard from Akimichi Chouji before. "Now." Shikamaru actually flinched, leaning over the terminal.

"You will regret this," said Sasuke calmly, looking straight into the other man's eyes. He could play hardball, too. "You'll never get to eat yakiniku again."

"Head surgery on August 8, again on Sept. 16, eye implantation on 18, facial reconstruction on 27---"

Chouji met his gaze with gray eyes nearly as cold. "I hate yakiniku."

Sasuke blinked, head moving backwards in surprise. Then he whirled it – so fast that the room spun-- and looked around him, really _looked._

Below him was a gray concrete floor, with equally depressing concrete walls and ceiling. Wires ran across them, draping down to something behind him that he couldn't quite see but had been in Orochimaru's labs long enough to know.

Tanks.

The cold feeling began in the pit of his stomach.

"They did something else in October," came Shikamaru's whiny voice – _not Shikamaru's_ – over the rushing sound growing in his ears. "I dunno, the entry doesn't refer to anything in specific. I can't summarize it, honest."

There were tanks behind him. There had been glass – yes, glass – on the ground below him. And as he focused on his hands, tied above him, his eyes came to rest on a... mole.

Sasuke had never had a mole on either of his arms before.

The mole seemed to expand, the single dark spot that was not a bug, not a wound, not a tattoo, until it was the only thing he could see--could it be--no, it couldn't--this was genjutsu, a nightmare--

"I have a feeling you are going to be the one to regret this experience," said Chouji—_not Chouji_—in a voice that somehow managed to express both cold anger and almost-sadness. "Uchiha Sasuke."

Uchiha Sasuke, lab subject # 16, tied down in the underground laboratory where his own body had been changed without his consent, could not find any words in reply.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: Hello! Thanks for the reviews! They encouraged me to get this chapter out super fast (for me)! I hope it answers some questions and brings up many more...

...

(Man, I suck at exposition...)

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"Aaand... it's just been hanging out in the tank for a while," the voice from the man – boy? - sitting at the computer continued, completely oblivious to Sasuke's moment of existential panic. "I dunno why. They ran like one test in December. December 4. It was... inconclusive." He leaned back – Sasuke could hear the chair creak. "There's not enough data in this file to know, like, _anything_."

The Chouji-lookalike sitting in front of him, on the other hand, was aware enough to be silent. His eyes, probing Sasuke's face, slowly lost their rage to develop into... pity.

Sasuke didn't even want to know what his face must look like.

Shikamaru-with-glasses whirled around in his chair, voice surprisingly chirpy. "So why do _you_ think it's alive? Didn't all the others die when we blew the power out?"

"Shikajiro," said the older man quietly, "shut up."

Sasuke struggled to collect his thoughts in the resulting silence, feeling his heartbeat louder and louder in his ears. This... this...

_Genjutsu_, his mind supplied, and he clung to it with relief. Of course – he was a threat to anyone who was holding him if he had all his faculties about him. _But who?_ his mind, his treacherous mind asked him. Who would have the ability to trick an owner of the Sharingan so completely?

_Madara._ Of course. Sasuke felt his heartbeat slow, his panic subside. If it came to playing Madara, well, he had been at this for a while. No one but himself knew that as soon as Danzo and the Elders' life blood spilled onto the ground, Madara was the next target of Sasuke's revenge. He merely had to bide his time until a weakness in the older – much older – ninja made itself clear.

That included playing along with this genjutsu, until he found a way to break it.

Slowly, deliberately, Sasuke increased his breathing speed, making it sound like he was close to panic. "Where am I?" he asked, and was perversely glad that his voice had reverted to cracking and warbling.

"You're in a facility in Mist," said serious-Chouji in a voice without much inflection.

"Facility number 3!" chipped in the Shikamaru lookalike, Shikajiro apparently. "We've been looking for it for, like,_ forever_."

"Wh-what happened to me?" asked Sasuke, hating himself for sounding so pathetic, knowing it was necessary.

"That's what we're trying to find—"

"You had a head surgery on August 8, another on September--"

"Shut up, Shika."

Sasuke closed his eyes, more not to laugh than anything else. Madara had one wicked sense of humor.

He heard the Chouji-lookalike stand up, move closer. _Don't strike,_ Sasuke told himself. _Not until your hands are free..._

"It'll be okay," said the other man, in a halting voice perhaps meant to be soothing. "Do you – do you remember Leaf? The Leaf village?"

Now Sasuke had to choke down his anger. Madara could also be uniquely insulting. He opened his eyes and glared at the other man.

"Of course I do. I lived there for years." Without knowing the depths of their betrayal.

Relief was obvious on the other man's face. "Good. We'll – we will take you there, as soon as possible." His eyes glanced over the ties that bound Sasuke; Sasuke allowed himself to hope--

"We're gong to keep you bound as a precaution," continued the Chouji-lookalike. _Damn!_ thought Sasuke, though it made sense that Madara would not be fooled so easily. "You understand. These circumstances are--" He paused, shook himself. "You understand," he said again.

"Chouno," whined Shikajiro, leaning on the back of the chair so it creaked in a very annoying fashion. "I hafta download all the data on the computers here. It's the _mission_."

"And you will," said the man, Chouno apparently, in return. "As quickly as possible. Now. No more talking." He looked around. "I'll make one more patrol before I call in the surveyors. Hopefully there won't be any more... surprises." He glanced back at Sasuke one last time before moving with surprising speed out of Sasuke's field of vision. Shikajiro gave Sasuke one more intrigued look before turning around in the chair and making data flow across the screen at a speed too fast to follow.

Which left Sasuke, still tied to a pipe.

_Genjutsu,_ thought Sasuke again. _This is genjutsu._ He took an even breath, in and out. What could he tell for sure about reality, trapped in a jutsu that seemed more real with every mote of dust in the air that floated by? Precious little, except for the fact that he, himself was somewhere still breathing.

_Madara,_ thought Sasuke again. He knew that Madara had been involved in the Uchiha massacre. Itachi couldn't – hadn't – done it all by himself. Everything else was hearsay, illusion.. drifting just out of reach. Madara may or may not have met with Itachi, though it seemed likely. He may or may not have fought with the First Hokage Hashirama so many years ago. He may or may not really be _the_ Uchiha Madara, though he didn't know why Itachi would have lied to him about that. There were a lot of things that hovered just on the edge of truth; he was determined to rip the shroud of history off of them.

Sasuke felt the wrench of pain, too, that accompanied every thought of Itachi these days. He pushed it away. Only cold, clear reasoning would bring him – and Itachi – the justice that their blood cried out for.

In the meanwhile, he still had an absolutely splitting headache.

A memory of the Raikage's fist smashing through Susano'o and into his cheek flitted across his mind. That combined with the usual ache behind his eyes whenever he used the Mangekyo... yes, that would approximate what he was feeling now. Sasuke let a smirk come onto his face. Not _everything_ in this world was an illusion.

From behind him he heard the sound of rushing footsteps, more than one person. Loud, clumsy. Not ninjas.

"By the gods--" he heard the gasped exclamation, repeated more than once by the group. Chouno's voice overshadowed them, loud on purpose.

"This is the laboratory holding room. There is no need to worry, all those still in the tank are deceased." A pause. "There is one live one, but it is secured. Us ninjas will... handle it."

Sasuke closed his eyes, trying to block out the background noise. Genjutsu could be broken through expert control of his own chakra rhythms. He had merely to sense them – they had to still be there, buried deeply within the illusion. If he could just get around the splitting _pain_...

Footsteps near his head let him know that Chouno was nearby, but he ignored them. Suddenly, a scratchy cloth landed on top of him. He opened his eyes in surprise, looked down at the field blanket tossed over his body.

"You are going to stay there until the surveyors are finished," said Chouno, still being careful not to get within striking range of any of Sasuke's limbs. "It's for... your modesty."

Sasuke hadn't even realized he was naked.

Suddenly the floor felt a lot colder.

…

The surveyors took their sweet time doing their work, Sasuke couldn't help thinking. The bindings around his wrists made his arms go more and more numb over time, just like they would in real life. He couldn't help but wonder if he was bound in real life. Making a physical sensation pitch-perfect was one of the most complex aspects of genjutsu – Sasuke ought to know.

Chouno gave loud orders, most of them quite technical and, frankly, obvious – or would have been, to trained professionals. Sasuke wondered why Madara had decided to have civilians doing what no respectable ninja fort would ever leave to them. To annoy him? Put him off? Some other inscrutable reason of his own?

What was really annoying him, though, was the fact that this Shikajiro character, right behind him and well within hearing range, could not stop tapping away on that monitor for so much as ten seconds in a row. _Tikka tikka tick, tikka tick tick. Tikketa tickketa tiktiktik--- _

Sasuke had gritted his teeth and counted his blessings. The brat could still be talking, after all.

Time passed in indecipherable units, one blending into another. No daylight was visible in the underground lab – only the flickering from the monitor, and a few emergency lights, both apparently powered from the generator that the squad had brought with them. Sasuke blinked his eyes several times, concentrated on his breathing. He suspected that Madara was trying to confuse him with this lack of stimulation, interrupted only when a surveyor shouted a question, or when yet another part of his body decided it wanted to take its turn as most painful.

All the physical signs indicated that there was no way he could successfully escape. His muscles, his senses told him, were weak, much weaker than he'd been in years. Pain flared in and out in a random fashion, except for his head, where it was constant. Most disturbingly, he couldn't seem to get a good grip on his own chakra. He was used to it flaring up when he so much as supposed an attack might spring from the shadows. But for whatever reason, he felt... disconnected.

_That's the key,_ realized Sasuke suddenly, heart thumping loudly in his ears. _My own chakra is being disrupted by something. But if I can just break through the blockage..._

"Done!" Shikajiro shouted so loudly that Sasuke jumped. "Done! Chouno, I'm done!" He leaped out of the chair and clattered out of Sasuke's range of view. Unfortunately, he could still be heard.

"All the good files are on this one here, and I put the corrupted ones here, so that they wouldn't contaminate each other, and there was one virus, and I put it on here, and then there was an operating system and I didn't know if you wanted that but just in case I put it on here--"

"Okay, that's fine," said Chouno quickly, cutting Shikajiro off. "Tanaka-san!" he called to one of the surveyors. "Our part of the mission is complete. We are going to return to Konoha-gakure with the data and - and the specimen. Will you be able to complete the mission?"

"Get it out of here," Sasuke heard one of the others mutter.

"For Fire Country. Sir." That voice was more likely Tanaka.

Sasuke closed his eyes again and berated himself for getting caught up in the details of the genjutsu. What he needed to focus on, the truth, was strictly _inside_--

Before he knew what was happening, his hands had been detached from the pipe (but not each other) and he was pulled into an awkward sitting position. Every single one of the muscles that had hurt at one time before, screamed in pain again.

"I need you to get up," said Chouno, standing – still a safe distance away – and holding the other end of the rope. "I need you to walk. Can you do that?"

Sasuke had been putting too much energy into not crying out to answer that verbally. He glared.

"It's been in a tank for, like, 7 months and 2 days and 15 more hours _besides_," supplied Shikajiro, coming to stand right besides the taller ninja. "Are you sure it can really--"

"Don't," said Sasuke, ending that comment right in the middle. "Call me," he gathered his legs beneath him, ignoring the pain – he was _Uchiha Sasuke_, dammit - "_It._" He stood. His knees only trembled a little bit as the blanket fell to the floor.

There was a brief silence.

"Okay," Shikajiro continued. "You're a boy. Got it."

"Shika," said Chouno. "Go ahead of me and get old man Nakata with the cart."

"Are you sure you don't want backup--"

"Go." Shikajiro went.

Sasuke followed Chouno's lead, knees trembling but not giving way – they _would not_ give way – as Chouno walked backwards out of the lab, eyes never leaving Sasuke, through the door, and out into a gently sloping hallway. Large panels of glass glinted against the wall; not broken, but perhaps meant to do repairs that would never be completed.

Sasuke caught a glimpse of himself in one of them, like a mirror.

He looked... exactly like himself.

Even his cowlick in back poked up, though a little more bedraggled than usual.

Sasuke was very careful to keep his face neutral, even when one of his legs spasmed and he nearly fell, catching himself through reflexes alone. He kept it like that as he kept walking, heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

But inside, he was smirking up a storm.

Madara may have thought he was baffling Sasuke by keeping his face the same. May have thought it would pull him deeper into the genjutsu.

But as long as his face and his memories were the same...

_Mangekyo Sharingan,_ thought Sasuke, thinking of Itachi's cold eyes, the eyes that only lied because they had to. _I'll have you back soon enough. Just wait. _

And he walked out into the light.


	3. Chapter 3

Okay, here is the chapter. Sorry for the wait. I had to work over 10 hours over my contracted time last week... anybody else hate their job?

Also, I am thinking of making a fic journal to reply to reviews. Yes? No? Indifferent? :) In any case, let's all enjoy Sasuke's suffering now...

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The sunlight twinkled down from above, making Sasuke need to squint every time he looked around. He was sitting awkwardly on a half-pile of hay in a cart, arms tied in front of him, which rattled as if it was about to collapse every time it hit a rut in the road.

Chouno sat across from him, still holding the other end of the rope. His eyes did not leave Sasuke's face for an instant.

Facility #3, apparently, had been on a rather high point of ground in the Mist country – the creeping fog Sasuke remembered from past visits here was not to be seen. Birds sang in the trees as they passed. The old man driving, toothless and nearly blind, spoke with a smile in his voice. "Nice day for spring, yeh?"

"Not that nice. It's too _hot._" After that unnecessary evaluation, Shikajiro shifted, wriggled, took off his ninja vest and finally just lay back on the hay. Snoring sounds emanated seconds later.

Chouno let out a sigh of exasperation, still not letting his eyes leave Sasuke even as he spoke. "Still just a kid..."

It would have all been more amusing to Sasuke if it hadn't been a product of Madara's twisted mind. He did not deign to reply.

The cart went over an especially large bump, slamming Sasuke's shoulder into the side and reawakening the dull, throbbing pain in his head that never quite seemed to go away. He closed his eyes, partially to hide it from Chouno, partially to escape that penetrating gaze. He somehow doubted that the Akimichi he had known would have ever been quite so... competent.

But, that hardly mattered now.

Sasuke kept his eyes closed, blocking out the heat from the sun, the sounds from around him, the not so gentle rocking motion of the cart, trying to delve deeper into his own mind. Somewhere in there, somewhere deep where the very core of his will resided, was the key to his own salvation.

Knowing that didn't make the task in front of him any easier. Sasuke had never been as much of a technician as he seemed. The Uchiha body was a well-designed machine – after a certain point, it had seemed as if all Sasuke had to do was devise a technique, provided it was in line with his strengths, and the body could deliver. Somewhere about half-way through his training with Orochimaru, things had become almost...easy.

He remembered finally getting the best of Kabuto, a smirking sadist who liked to take out the fact that he had surpassed him in Orochimaru's esteem by making training exercises as painful as possible. He remembered the day he had first put his sandaled foot to Kabuto's neck, and saw the fear in the older man's eyes.

That was the day he knew he had been right to leave the Leaf.

Shikajiro let out a particularly loud snore, jarring Sasuke from his thoughts. Cursing his own wandering mind, Sasuke went back to the task of internal surveying with a vengeance. It didn't take long to tally up the damage.

The chakra blockage that Madara had put on him left him unable to use the Sharingan, and unable to so much as properly channel chakra through a limb. Furthermore, the genjutsu was designed so that Sasuke perceived that he had an entirely different body – he could tell just by the way he sat in the cart, that he himself was slightly smaller than he remembered. His muscles in his limbs were just a little bit leaner. Even down to the so-called "taste" of chakra in his mouth – he was not entirely sure what else to call it; perhaps it was the taste of his own blood after a fight – it was different, less acidic. Wrong.

And that was all on top of the fact that he was so physically weak, he could barely walk straight.

Sasuke took a deep breath in, and out. Madara was nothing if not cruel and capricious. He would know that this would be exactly the type of genjutsu that would fuck most with Sasuke's mind.

Long ago, Sasuke had learned that bonds of family, friendships, loyalty and even human limits could be shattered. One after another the shackles had fallen off, each less painful than the last, leaving him able to go higher, reach farther, attain his ultimate goals one after the other. He had seen no limit – none besides death. Maybe that was where he was headed – maybe that was where he wanted to head. He was running along the blood-soaked path headlong, sparing time and pity for no one.

He had not ever thought that he and his body could be separated.

_They are _not _separated!_ Sasuke reminded himself with more force than was perhaps strictly necessary, grimacing at another wave of pain in his head. _My body, my Sharingan, is with me! Only Madara stands in the way..._

He was going to have to start from the ground up.

There was indeed chakra in his veins – he could feel it, even if it didn't feel quite right. He reached out experimentally, probed it. It stirred sluggishly. There was not a lot of it. It was not going to be easy to cultivate it.

But if he could manipulate this false chakra, however poorly, there was a chance he could break though to his own.

_Failure is not an option for an Uchiha,_ thought Sasuke, and braced himself for some regular chakra exercises. He could already tell they were going to hurt.

The cart rattled on down the road.

…

That evening, they camped by the sea. Sasuke had not opened his eyes until the sky was already dark. He could hear the crashing of the waves nearby, though, making their location clear.

"Aren't you tired, Chouno?" asked Shikajiro in the background as he made his way back towards their flickering campfire with an arm full of firewood. His earlier nap made him annoyingly energetic. Chouno shook his head. He hadn't, apparently, ever taken his eye off Sasuke over the whole day, but either he didn't know that Sasuke had been trying to cultivate his chakra, or didn't care.

Sasuke himself was utterly exhausted. He had stumbled getting out of the cart, and been subjected to the humiliation of Chouno grabbing his arm to help him over to the camp site. Chouno himself had looked a bit surprised, and angry – at himself, Sasuke had no doubt. If he had been in any sort of fighting condition at all, he could have used that slip to good advantage.

He wondered if Madara was taunting him, by putting him with semi-competents who _should_ have been so easy to escape from.

In fact, the whole set-up was getting more and more suspicious in Sasuke's mind. He was, apparently, a dangerous scientific experiment discovered in a hidden lab in enemy territory. Yet only two ninjas had been sent to take a survey? With civilians in tow? And they had taken the path back from this super-secret lab in a _cart_, with him tied by mere _rope?_ What, had the Hidden Mist village vanished into thin air?

Chouno cooked a meal of what looked like glorified gruel, still keeping an eye on Sasuke, spooning it out carefully into bowls. He came over to Sasuke with a bowl and a spoon.

"I can feed myself," snarled Sasuke, who had been trying not to slump over into sleep.

"No," said Chouno after a moment of consideration, "there are circumstances."

Sasuke suddenly found the energy to knock the bowl to the ground with his bound hands.

Chouno picked it up off the ground, refilled it, walked back. He stood there as if considering for a while.

"You," he said, making Sasuke look up at him. "I don't know what you are, or who you really are. But I can tell a few things." He squatted down, just out of reach. "You're exhausted. You're out of shape. You're nearly helpless. You have no allies. And you're too damned proud to acknowledge it." Stung, Sasuke opened his mouth to retort – Chouno shoved the spoon into it, nearly choking him. "Just eat. Uchiha Sasuke Junior or whoever you are." He pulled it out with a pop. "You'll faint and I'll have to make Shika feed you mouth to mouth otherwise."

"Ewww!" Shikajiro chimed in from the other side of the fire, and Sasuke had to agree. He could live forever without experiencing that, even in genjutsu. With a glare that had frozen the blood of lesser men, he allowed Chouno to shove the next spoonful past his closed lips.

He hated to admit to himself, minutes later, that it felt good to have food in his stomach.

With the sounds of Shikajiro complaining about the taste and Chouno reminding him sternly that they didn't have time for a gourmet meal ringing in his ears, Sasuke finally lost the battle against sleep. He didn't even feel his side hit the sand.

…

Once again, he awoke to pain.

Sasuke shivered his eyes open to find himself curled in a ball at the bottom of what appeared to be a small rowboat. What had felt deceptively good in his stomach last night (only one night ago? ) was now a liquid ball of fire. The side of the boat wavered in and out of his vision. He struggled not to vomit. The boat rocked suddenly, waves slapping against the side, and he lost the battle.

"Shit," he heard a voice say, and a cool cloth was applied to his face. It sounded like Chouno, but he couldn't be sure.

"Is he going to die now?" asked Shikajiro cheerfully. He seemed to be sitting somewhere up front. Sasuke filed that information away. It would be important should he be gifted with the chance to kill him.

"No. I don't know." Chouno's voice carried both frustration and worry. "I don't know anything about him except what you told me. Is there some reason he couldn't live outside the tank?"

"I don't know! I'm not a scientist! Are we going to have to carry his corpse if he dies? Won't it smell really bad?"

Sasuke wished he could smash a chakra-enhanced fist into both their faces, but the slightest movement was agony. He had thought it hurt before – no, no, he hadn't even had the concept.

A hand reached down and lifted his head up. Sasuke screamed and blacked out.


	4. Chapter 4

This chapter has been heavily edited from before! It is much better now :) Hope you enjoy!

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Sasuke slowly became aware of warmth – a warm patch on his arm. Too warm, actually; uncomfortable. He shifted it slightly to the right. It dropped off of the edge, and his whole body nearly went with it.

Eyes snapping open, Sasuke automatically rearranged his body on the—chair? His first instinct was to whip his head around, but the pain that had mercifully escaped him while he was unconscious came back full force. He spent a few minutes with his eyes screwed closed, sitting very, very still.

Once he was certain he could do it without retching, he opened them again. Slowly – slowly – a ceiling came into focus. It was made of slatted wood with what might have been aluminum siding braced on top, easily visible through the half-hearted structure. Out of the corner of his eye, Sasuke could tell there was a window, covered with blinds that had seen better days. There were a few cracks in them. One of them must have been letting sunlight through, onto his arm.

For a long moment, Sasuke lay there, confused. He could hear a few ambient sounds outside the window – men shouting, lifting things. He recognized the slightly salty smell in the air as that of the sea. As he began to try to tense a few muscles experimentally, to perhaps attempt sitting up, he noticed a foreign... _thing_ in his other arm. He turned his head slowly this time - very slowly.

The thing was a needle. It was buried deep into his left arm, attached to a clear IV drip.

If he hadn't been very certain that sudden movements were a bad idea, Sasuke would have reached over and ripped it out. IVs reminded him far too well of Orochimaru's laboratory. As he was debating whether he should do it anyway, voices outside the door came into clearer focus.

"--needs to take it slowly. You are lucky we had a shipment of refugee supplies delivered last month."

"Thank you, doctor."

"Don't you thank you doctor me. Take better care of your own next time. We have our own issues to worry about." There was a creaking sound as a door swung open across the room. Sasuke tensed his muscles in spite of himself.

"Yes, doctor," said the voice he now recognized as Chouno's. "I—oh!"

"Awake already?" A gray-whiskered face suddenly appeared directly over Sasuke's; he grimaced. The man had clearly eaten fish for breakfast. "Why, how resilient! I suppose that's to be expected with your kind." Sasuke found his arm suddenly lifted against his will; he tried not to wince.

"Son, how long has it been since you ate solid food?" The man's voice was gruff if not unkind as he checked Sasuke's pulse. Sasuke opened his mouth but could not think a reply. "You can't keep running around on those hyped-up ninja energy pills for this long and think you can just revert to solid meals, that's for sure. I see new-fledged soldiers do it all the time, young fools. You ought to know better – what'd they teach you in that ninja fort?"

"Sir," said Chouno from slightly behind the man, voice terse, "we can't explain our circumstances to you any further. I hope you understand."

"Top secret and all that? Right, right," sighed the doctor, laying Sasuke's arm back down on what Sasuke now figured to be a re-purposed dentist's chair. "Look, it'll be a flat 55 for the rehydration and nutrition. I need it in cash, no IOU, you hear me?"

"Understood," said Chouno after the briefest of pauses, and Sasuke heard the scrape of money being placed on a table.

"He'll be ready to be moved in an hour or so," said the doctor in reply, jingling the cash as he put it in his pocket. "Sooner, perhaps. But if you take him out before 45 minutes, you're really pushing it."

"Thank you, doctor."

"For heaven's sake!" grumbled the man, though he was already moving towards the door. "And tell your companion that the dockworkers work plenty efficiently already, we don't have plans to change a damn thing. Preferably _before_ one of them punches him in the face." The door swung shut.

Chouno was silent for a moment, then let out a truly exasperated sigh. "Stupid brat!" He clomped over towards a different wall, which must have had a window Sasuke couldn't see. "SHIKAJIRO!!"

Wincing at the sounds echoing in his still-throbbing head, as Chouno yelled orders out the window, Sasuke lifted his head just far enough to evaluate his current condition. He had been laid out on this makeshift chair very neatly, and dressed in clothes clearly too large for him; the baggy pants were tied with rope. Aside from the pain glancing through his body, and the needle stuck in his arm, he didn't seem to have any other external wounds. _Not that this matters, of course, when I am stuck in a genjutsu,_ he remembered abruptly. Old habits died hard.

He had also noticed that the sunspot, back on his flesh, highlighted perfectly the single mole.

Sasuke closed his eyes and hoped sleep would follow quickly.

…

"So you _didn't _die. We thought you might, you know."

There were precious few people (or entities) in the world whom Sasuke wouldn't have rather had sitting next to his sickbed than Shikajiro.

"You threw up on my leg in the rowboat. It was really gross."

Assigned to "watch" an immobile Sasuke while Chouno went to take care of something, he didn't seem to know when to _shut the hell up, _and Sasuke was getting tired of glaring.

"Say, what's your name? Wait - do you even have one?"

He weighed another glare and the answer; finally, he decided he didn't care who heard.

"I..." His voice cracked, sounding just as pathetic as he felt. He took a deep breath, steeled it with sheer will. "My name is Uchiha Sasuke."

Shikajiro snorted. With _laughter. _

Rage narrowed Sasuke's field of vision to a seething red line. If his needle-stuck arm could have moved with just a _tad_ bit more finesse--

"Is there something _funny?_"

"Yeah!" Shikajiro didn't seem to pick up on the implied threat to his life in Sasuke's voice. "But Chouno told me not to talk to you about that."

"Did he."

"Yeah." Sasuke saw him nodding to himself out of the corner of his eye.

If this moron he was forced to converse with was a manifestation of Madara's fucked up mind, like that bizarre Tobi character had been, Sasuke vowed to kill the bastard _extra _painfully when he got around to it.

In the meanwhile, he returned to the silent treatment with a vengeance.

The wind made a soft whispering sound as it wound around the small building like a softer ocean wave. A seagull's cry echoed distantly, almost forlorn. One of the dock workers outside shouted "Hey-ho" loud enough to carry into the small room, and was answered by farther-out voices, perhaps on a ship pulling into port.

"They really are doing it all wrong. You shouldn't have boats coming in without a time schedule."

The silence continued after that statement for a while.

"The small ones should dock down at the _end_, not in the middle."

Silence ticked on, broken only by the cries of the gulls and grunts of the men.

"They'd have better work efficiency if they took smoke breaks in shifts."

Good _gods,_ thought Sasuke on the very edge of sanity, was Madara or _anybody_ ever going to make him _stop __talking--_

"You _really_ looked dead. I saw my brother when he was dead, too."

Sasuke's eyes focused suddenly on the ceiling. Every board came into sharp relief.

_ Sorry, little brother. This is the last time. _

"I wasn't supposed to. Dad got angry at me. They burned him all up," Shikajiro continued matter-of-factly. "But before they did his face was all white and flat. Yours was like that too. So I thought you were going to die."

His voice was calm, even casual. No change of tone from complaining about port organization. He could have been talking about the weather.

Sasuke wondered if something had lodged in his own throat.

_ Did you hate your brother? _he wondered despite himself. Then, _Did you love your brother? _

"Why didn't _you_ die?" asked Shikajiro, then continued before Sasuke could even start to consider an answer. "You didn't have any programming to break out of the tank on your own. I don't think, anyway." He clucked his tongue a few times, something he seemed to do when he was thinking. "Did you have a will to live? Is that what they mean by that? Why didn't my brother have that, I wonder?"

Nothing lurked under that question, that loaded, wrenching question, other than... _curiosity. _

_Sorry, little brother..._

Sasuke felt his blood run cold. He could sense his shoulders trembling and he hated, _hated_ himself for this.

The one thing he had never been about Itachi was indifferent.

"Dad said it was bad luck. But I don't understand bad luck either. Isn't it just that you didn't plan for every contingency?" Shikajiro sighed, truly aggrieved now. "People talk about stuff and do stuff and they don't make any _sense._"

"Your claim to be a ninja doesn't make any _sense_," hissed Sasuke, coiling up his shoulders like a snake about to strike. Anything to make him _stop talking---_"You aren't even _competent_. Don't talk to me about sense!"

"I'm a Special Jounin!" Shikajiro piped up with obvious pride, as if Sasuke had just asked a _simple question._ "I only do some sorts of things and not others. I collect data. I do it really well. Chouno is a regular Jounin. He said once that he doesn't think he should be, though. He said my brother was better. He was _real _drunk."

"Shut _up!_" Sasuke snarled, losing the battle over his emotions suddenly, head spinning, sitting up in the chair to slap a hand _over his face_ if that would only _shut him up---_

"Chouno says that a lot too. Hey, you're going to fall and rip the needle out and I don't know how to put it back in."

Sasuke stopped struggling, panting for breath, legs now partially hanging off the chair. His body trembled after even that miniscule exertion. A horrible realization struck him in the aftermath of his sudden rage.

Physically, and now emotionally...

He was _weak._

_Shit,_ thought Sasuke. _At this rate, Madara will..._

A door banged on the other side of the room.

"Shika! I have the coach lined up." Chouno sounded more tired than triumphant. "We're leaving now, or we won't get back to the village for another two days." His footsteps clomped towards the two of them. "How is he--" A pause. "Shika. I told you not to piss him off. He's _ill,_ for the gods' sake!"

"I just said--"

"Never mind. No more talking! I need you to go hold a space open on the transport coach!" The chair squeaked again as Shikajiro stood up and trotted out.

Chouno stood over Sasuke. He looked as tired as he sounded. "Don't mind him." The voice was almost mumbled. "He's a little odd, always has been. Look, we have to go and I'm going to have to carry you because I don't think you can walk yet. Don't fight me. Understood?"

Sasuke turned his head away and stared fixedly at the nearby wall.

"I'm just going to tape the needle in for now--" There was a sound of ripping tape. Sasuke let his arm be lifted, felt the tape adhere to his skin in brisk, professional movements.

He noticed that the movement hurt less this time.

"You look better," affirmed Chouno in a dull voice. "Here, hold your IV bag." It was stuffed into Sasuke's hands. "I'm going to lift you now."

An arm snaked under Sasuke's back, and another under his knees. Before he could react, he was lifted up helpless-damsel style in the Akimichi's arms.

"Don't fight me," warned Chouno as if he could read Sasuke's mind. "You won't like it if I have to drop you."

Sasuke thought about glaring. He thought about struggling.

Instead, he closed his eyes.

"Thank you." Chouno's brittle voice carried the hints of true exhaustion on more than one level. "We'll... we'll be back home soon."

_ Home? _thought Sasuke_. I vowed I would never go home. _

_Sorry, little brother..._

Chouno kicked the door open with his foot, and the warm sunlight from the dying day hit Sasuke full in the face.


	5. Chapter 5

Okay! I finally finished Chapter 5! Sasuke's starting to use that genius brain of his at last... and next chapter is when things start to get interesting XD Enjoy!

NOTE: Chapter 4 has been HEAVILY edited, much for the better. I advise going and skimming it once more for this chapter to make the maximum amount of sense. Happy reading!

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He grew stronger as they grew weaker.

The coach rattled along dark roads in the middle of the night, the only light that of the moon through the slatted windows. Sasuke sat next to a civilian man who snored only occasionally, as if his nasal passageways were fickle about their unconscious closing. His weight leaned somewhat uncomfortably on Sasuke's shoulder, but Sasuke made no move to shove him off.

Across from him sat Chouno, sound asleep.

Sasuke's eyes had long ago adjusted to the darkness. He swept them over the contents of the coach. Himself, with a borrowed blanket draped around his narrow shoulders. Chouno. Shikajiro sleeping leaning against the man's left shoulder. A civilian woman, her sleeping toddler in her arms. Two more civilian men, faces tucked into their collars.

He was the only one awake.

The spent IV was tucked partway under his leg; he didn't think the civilians had even noticed it. It was empty, but the needle remained in his arm, at least until he was in a position where he could rip the tape off. The pain that had been his constant companion over the last day or so had completely vanished. Even the eternal headache had subsided greatly.

It had revived him.

Sasuke shifted his eyes towards where the driver was sitting in front, where the heavy breaths of the beasts of burden could be heard, then towards the back, where the door remained loosely latched.

Escaping would be so _easy. _

Chouno's head nodded back and forth, his eyes still slightly open even though they were unseeing. Sasuke watched his movements closely, like a raptor observing its prey. It was coming to the point where he would have to make a decision of his own.

Was this genjutsu... or something else?

Sasuke had come this far convinced that Madara was pulling the strings. In fact, he was still convinced. But if anyone was familiar with genjutsu in all its permutations, it was him, possessor of the Sharingan. And the longer he continued in this genjutsu, the more it seemed... _odd. _

Genjutsu, as he well knew, required massive levels of chakra to perform at a high level. And the level of this genjutsu was one of the highest he had ever experienced. Pitch-perfect physical sensations, scents and sounds, realistic interactions with other "people"--a genjutsu of this level couldn't be cast lightly, even by Madara. It couldn't be cast on a whim.

It had to be leading him somewhere, to something.

But where?

Every once in a while the shadow of leaves flickered across the sleeping faces of the passengers, a clear sign that they were back in Fire Country. Though Sasuke didn't remember civilian courier service to a Hidden Village existing during his childhood.

Sasuke wondered, as he watched the shadows play off of Chouno's unconscious face, whether in fact Madara was gambling with a _partial_ genjutsu. In other words, Sasuke might be in a real place right now, perhaps even in a moving vehicle. Perhaps there was a needle taped to his arm in real life.

Perhaps, in other words, running away might not be such a pointless exercise as he'd thought.

On the other hand, if this was true and complete genjutsu, Madara's eye was on him at every moment. Nothing he did assuming that this world was corporeal would lead to any meaningful escape.

There were other options too, however unlikely. Perhaps this was a communal genjutsu, and Madara was joining forces with unknown allies. In which case, the clear and separate personalities he had run into thus far made more sense. In that case, too, running away might have meaning – he could slip from Madara's domain into that of someone far less skilled, and break through that way.

Sasuke bit his lip, trying to read Madara's mind. What did the man expect him to do? And how could he circumvent that?

If he was to escape – he looked around the coach once again to verify – he would have to slip out from underneath the man leaning on him, unbind his hands, reach the door, unlatch it, and slip out the back. Then, he would have to run.

Even if this was the real world – he briefly assumed it was, for the sake of argument – he would have to find a way to avoid Chouno afterward (though Shikajiro hardly merited consideration). The man, though not a particularly great ninja, would at least have some tracking skills, and presumably the traditional Akimichi range of attack jutsus. Sasuke did not have the use of the Sharingan right now, not even his regular three-tomoe form. Most – almost all, in fact– of the jutsus he knew that didn't require chakra or the Sharingan were of the throwing-star variety, and he didn't have any tucked down his borrowed pants. His body, though stronger, was still grossly out of shape. And he had no idea where he was.

It was a challenge, clearly – but hardly one that made his blood sing. Sasuke was a realist; he understood when the odds were stacked against him. And of course, if this truly was full genjutsu, it would all be pointless.

Pretending it wasn't, though, gave him at least some illusion of control. And perhaps in striving, he would find the key.

It was worth a try, at least.

_If I had the use of the Sharingan... _Sasuke bit his lip, worried it between his teeth. No, he decided, he wouldn't run. Not yet. He didn't need to lay his cards on the table right now. He still had time.

Time he could put to good use.

With Chouno out cold, Sasuke figured, he could perform a different type of chakra exercise. Slowly, painfully slowly, he moved his hands - bound in front of him - together in a sign. This time, instead of trying to lightly diffuse energy throughout his body while only making the occasional traditional sign – as he had gotten used to doing over his ninja career – he went back to the very beginning. How had he formed chakra when he was a genin – no, an Academy student? How had he done it back in those dark days when he had only the distant hope of revenge to keep him going?

His chakra still felt _wrong_ – but he tried to push past that. He did still seem to have some, after all, and he did seem to have a little bit of control over it. Nudging it, he tried to make it move in the direction of his eyes.

Of course, it resisted. In fact, it wouldn't even go anywhere past his neck.

_Genjutsu,_ thought Sasuke bleakly. Was there any hope? He didn't even know whether or not the chakra he could feel was even his, or a plant...

_I never go back on my word!!_

Sasuke gave a little start at the sudden, seemingly unrelated memory.

Blue, determined eyes stared back at him in the eye of his mind. _That is my ninja way! _

_Oh, right, Naruto,_ thought Sasuke, and had to cut off a little chuckle in his throat. He was pretty sure if it was Naruto in this situation, he would toss all worries and rational thought right out the window, and just plunge blindly forward with what he _could _do, pointless or no.

Sasuke didn't like to copy Naruto. It was generally beneath him. But in this situation, he didn't have a lot of options. And Naruto had pushed him to surpass his limits before.

It was better than thinking of his brother.

Pushing that thought away as violently as he could without flinching, Sasuke focused again on the stubbornly slow chakra within. Even if it wasn't his, he could at least learn its properties.

He made the sign of the Dog, then the Boar. The chakra shifted lazily back and forth within his core.

Sasuke took a deep breath, made the signs again, slower and stronger this time.

The chakra shifted more.

He did it again, making the signs as _deliberately_ and as _powerfully_ as he could.

The chakra began to flow.

Heart pounding in exhilaration, Sasuke tried not to make any sudden movements. He tried to draw it up towards his head...

The chakra stopped flowing.

Dejected, Sasuke settled for biting down hard on his lip until the blood came.

_I never go back on my word!!_

_You never gave up, did you, dead last?_ thought Sasuke ironically, remembering how he'd tripped over that loud-mouthed brat at every turn as he'd moved towards his goals. _Even thought I know better than anyone how hopeless it was..._

_I can do at least as well as that. _

Taking in a silent breath, he tried again.

This time, he tried to evaluate how the chakra was different that his own. His own flowed, in fact it ricocheted, back and forth across his body. All he had to do was open the floodgates, set it a target, and it was there in an instant.

This chakra didn't seem to want to do that, though. It was stubborn and slow. Hard to control.

Sasuke was no technician. And he was no chakra specialist. But he wondered if a different-seeming type of chakra required a different method of control. He sensed that this type didn't want to jump anywhere. It would probably have to be... _pushed. _

He had never _pushed _chakra before in his life.

But he had the rest of the night to learn how.

The man next to him let out one of his occasional snores, but no one in the coach stirred. The shadows of leaves kept flitting across their faces. Sasuke made the signs over and over again. Dog, and Boar.

Dog, and Boar.

Dog, and Boar...

The nearly-full moon looked down on the coach as it rattled onwards. It would reach its destination by the time the sun came up next morning.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Hi everyone! Sorry this update took so long! ^^; Reviews are answered (finally) at the bottom of the page. Please let me know what you think!

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Morning light sliced through the slats on the side of the coach, streaming past Sasuke and striking the faces of those sitting across from him with sudden force.

They would arrive soon.

_ Thump! Thump! Thump!_ The driver slammed the back of his whip into the front of the coach to awaken the passengers. "Konoha Hidden Village! Three minutes!" There was a hissing sound as the whip was turned forward, onto the unfortunate beasts pulling the load.

Shikajiro must have opened his eyes at last, the seat creaking as he sat up from where he'd been leaning on Chouno's shoulder, the fabric whispering as he sleepily wiping the drool off his face. "Are we there yet?"

"Three minutes," said Chouno, his eyes surely fixed firmly on Sasuke's face, where they had been ever since he'd awoken with a start two hours before. As if to make up for his earlier failure of observation.

Sasuke's own eyes were fixed humbly at Chouno's feet, his bound hands held out in front of him. He made sure to keep his features neutral, with a hint of resignation. Just as he should be—his fragile life saved by a simple rehydration IV, in the process of being shipped off to an enemy fort; a bound captive, a former warrior barely able to stand. Nothing else could be expected of him.

But no one in the coach could see how his heart was beating faster, pump by pump. Gearing up. Preparing.

Soon, he would subvert those expectations.

His eyes remained humble. He scanned his surroundings with his ears instead.

The traffic had increased the closer they'd approached, it seemed, to the Hidden Village, with the hubbub of voices and the clatter of other vehicles rising like a storm swell. He could hear someone calling out in a sing-song voice, _bread for sale, bread for sale. _It was replaced by a woman hollering,_ Real ninja weapons available! Only slightly used! _Another voice competed on the other side of the coach, _fine women and dining, for only 20 a--_

Since when had the Leaf Hidden Village turned into a cheap gambling town? Sasuke closed his eyes, as if in shame. He had not taken Madara to be such a fool. Tricking him like _this?_

_Soon. _

Shikajiro yawned, his words slurring. "So, we're going to take him to my Dad, right?"

"At first," said Chouno tersely. "Shika, this is not the time to talk. Check to make sure the data is in order."

Sasuke could practically sense Shikajiro's expression. "It _is._"

"Check it anyway." Chouno's voice, though it had not raised in volume, was now an order, and Sasuke heard Shika rustling through his bag.

_Soon._

Abruptly, the coach rumbled to a stop, thumping Sasuke's shoulder against the sideboard. The passengers started to rise, as the man in front yelled "Refugee entrance ahead! All passengers off!"

"Shit," said Chouno, grimacing and slapping a hand to his forehead. "How could I forget--- Shika, watch him, don't let him get out of the coach yet!" His feet turned, moved out of Sasuke's viewpoint.

_Soon..._

Chouno called out, words not mattering, trying to catch the attention of the driver, and Sasuke knew from the vibrations that he was now _outside the coach._

And Sasuke knew.

_Now. _

He looked up, directly into Shikajiro's ugly glasses.

Shikajiro blinked back at him, bemused.

Sasuke activated the Sharingan.

Only the right eye wheeled into chakra-viewing clarity, a burst of pain like fireworks going off in his head, just as had finally happened while he was in the midst of _pushing_ and not _directing_ at some undefined hour last night, but Shikajiro was as much an amateur as he'd seemed. He'd frozen, entranced, mouth slightly open, unable to look away, even to _move_.

Swiftly, eyes never breaking contact, Sasuke reached forward into the bag on the brat's lap, finding a kunai and cutting the ropes that bound his hands with a true ninja's efficiency. The civilians were still exiting the coach, yawning, stretching, focus on the door. No one noticed what was happening behind them. No sound escaped Shikajiro's slack mouth.

As soon as his hands were free, Sasuke allowed himself one triumphant smirk, coming almost as a relief to his facial muscles. Shikajiro blinked, took in a sudden breath--

A swift blow to the temple rendered him unconscious, body slumping onto the side wall. _Take that,_ thought Sasuke, satisfied at this small revenge for all the former indignities, and _launched_ his own body forward, shoving the civilian in front of him aside as he leaped out the door, to freedom--

He burst into the sun, nearly blinded, Sharingan still spinning, stumbled once and then whirled to face Chouno, the man's face already hardening into a determined grimace as he came at him from atop the coach with the enlarged fist of the Akimichi clan raised to--

But Sasuke could now _see_.

He dodged it with ease.

As the ground next to him shattered he was already moving, spinning, feeling _alive_ suddenly, as his body obeyed his commands at last--

His right foot connected with the side of Chouno's jaw, snapping the head back so far it would cause terrible whiplash.

If Sasuke had been at full strength, the blow would have snapped Chouno's neck.

There was a scream now, echoing in his ear, as the civilians only now realized what was going on—but if they hadn't been there, Chouno would have done a more far-reaching attack, and Sasuke could not have escaped-- did that mean they were real?--his foot hit the ground and he pushed off it with all his strength, adrenaline singing in his veins, bolting for the nearest covered alley, where they could not attack so easily—the crowd behind him erupted into chaos as he dodged a vegetable stand, made a sharp right into an side passage, and _kept running--_

A minute later he stumbled, even adrenaline unable to overcome the weakness in his spasming muscles. He ducked into a particularly dark doorway, breathing hard, knowing more opponents would arrive soon, hoping they would not-- the Sharingan flickered with another flash of pain--

He heard a whimper and turned to see two children shaking in the dank room behind him, clutching each other in fear--

"Oh for the gods sake," he snarled and ducked out the other equally fetid doorway, walking at a fast pace as he dodged the stagnant pools and hanging laundry, taking a deep breath, clutching the kunai he still held as he forced the Sharingan to full strength again--

He had to get away from these people. Madara wouldn't be shy about taking them out as he sought Sasuke back. And they were real—weren't they? – chakra signatures were all around him, partially hidden by walls, too many people in a small place with shitty construction—but what did _that_ mean—he had to get out of here, in any case. Swiveling his head back and forth in an attempt to get at something approaching 180 degree vision, he noticed that the chakra signatures, piled on top of one another, ended abruptly in a certain direction. With a curse, muttered like a prayer, he headed that way.

_Where are the Anbu?_ thought Sasuke, then wondered why he was wondering that – mightn't he as well wonder where Madara was? - and dragged himself onwards, air burning his lungs, chakra flickering as he almost forgot to _push_ instead of _direct_, dodging down one alley after another, shoving past a woman carrying her wash, past a man who said "hey--" almost reflectively, hurled his faltering body over a low-lying fence and--

He was in the woods. The sounds of life were behind him, but they had been fenced out of here. Here. Where was here?

Biting his lip, limbs visibly shaking now, he forced himself onwards, into the underbrush. Branches scratched his face as he kept going, realizing belatedly that this had been where his plan ended. Were there no pursuers? Wasn't Madara going to show his face? He nearly tripped over a low-lying log, cursing aloud, Sharingan flickering out at last.

He stood there then, breathing hard, alone in the dark forest.

_ Well, here it is,_ he thought rather grimly. _The end of the line. _

Whether this was genjutsu or reality, sooner or later, someone would come for him.

A flicker of light caught his eye up ahead.

_Might as well,_ he thought, gulping in a final deep breath. Somehow his trembling legs walked forward, stumbling over the uneven ground. Ten steps later, he realized it came from a clearing.

At first, he stood at the edge, unwilling to go out with no cover, not recognizing the oddly-shaped stone that stood in the middle.

Then he realized he was looking at the _back _of the stone and his blood froze in his veins. The memorial stone of Konoha commanded a silence all its own, it seemed. The morning-lit clearing was oddly hushed, except for the sound of his harsh breathing, and the thudding beat of his own heart in his ears.

Sasuke worried his lip with his teeth, wavering slightly on his feet. It occurred to him that this might be the will of the genjutsu casters, that he end up here. Perhaps he was meant to go out to the stone, and read something that they assumed would bend him to their will. _How crude_, he thought spitefully, but then again, this might be where the entire reason for this escapade – a reason which seemed to spiral further out of his hands the more he tried to grasp it – might be made clear. Maybe.

The other option was that this was meaningless, amoral reality, and he couldn't, he _wouldn't_ believe that yet – not yet.

And where the hell _were_ the Anbu?

Sasuke was three steps across the clearing before he knew he had moved. The blood was rushing in his ears and the old headache had returned, pounding behind his eyes like his own head wanted to eject them. Once he realized he was going he vowed he would not turn back. Slowly, unsteadily, he made his way across the clearing to the stone, his very vision flickering along with the waves of pain.

At the touch of his fingers it was cold and smooth – just the way he remembered it, when he had visited it to trace the names of his clanspeople. Back when he thought Itachi had betrayed them all. Bile rose in his throat as he thought, _if Itachi's name is here, I will know it is genjutsu. _He maneuvered his way around it, suddenly feeling very tired, ready for this to be over. Ready for the truth to be made clear at last, and if it enraged him, at the very least it would be an infusion of energy to replace a tiredness that seemed to radiate to his very bones...

He took a deep breath, raised his face to the sunlit sky, then looked back down at the memorial stone.

The first name, he did not know.

Nor the second, nor the tenth, and as he scanned down the list he began to get more and more annoyed, until suddenly--

His eyes closed. He did not ask them to. They simply closed and he simply stood there.

He reached out one hand, to verify the outline of the letters of the most worn name on the top half of the stone, the one where fingers had traced again and again...

_U_

He remembered suddenly the Valley of the End, the cold satisfaction of smashing his chidori-wrapped fist through the sternum of the boy he had just admitted to himself, right then, was his best friend.

_Zu_

He remembered meeting him again three years later, the satisfaction that he could see his betrayed face again and remain unmoved.

_Ma_

He remembered a mission, a regular mission, on which nothing had happened in particular, where he had stooped so low in annoyance and frustration, in immaturity, that he had actually stuck his tongue back out at his tormentor and the boy had broken into the most brilliant smile.

_Ki_

He remembered realizing, standing on the unfinished bridge of Wave Country, that he had leapt forward to his own death, to protect another, before he had killed his brother. The shame; the relief....

_Na_

He remembered a day long ago, sitting on a pier, feeling so alone it ached like his whole body had been freeze-dried; and how he had scowled at the boy who had passed by but felt better nonetheless, less lonely--

_Ru_

He saw Naruto in front of his eyes, clear as day, shouting, "I never go back on my word!" and thought, _in this genjutsu, did I finally manage to kill Naruto _myself_--_

_Mi_

Sasuke's eyes snapped open. Naru...mi?

His mind went blank for a moment as he tried to make sense of it. Failing, his hand slipped automatically to the name below.

_Haruno Sakura. _

_Oh,_ thought Sasuke, and was momentarily surprised at the lack of emotion. Then he realized – whatever the first name had been, unless Naruto had magically become a woman, none of it made any sense. Sakura was no more dead than he was. And then he saw the third name, and the blankness was replaced with fury.

_Uchiha Itachi. _

"Fuck you, Madara," he snarled aloud, grinding his teeth together until he could feel the pain--

"Hey!" A voice came from behind him. Sasuke whirled without thinking, the kunai he had stolen from Shikajiro in his hand, trying to focus his whirling thoughts and inchoate rage on the situation in front of him, where he would surely now fight to the death--

"Hey! Sorry! Just trying to get your attention..." The first thing Sasuke noticed were hands raised in a gesture of surrender; he lowered the kunai a fraction. The next thing he saw were the blue, blue eyes—he snapped the kunai right back up again.

"_You_," he ground out, then realized he didn't really know who he was looking at.

The blue eyes were unmistakeable – _unmistakeable_-- but they were framed by dark violet hair, and a face made paler by the contrast. The cheeks were smooth. He was wearing a wrinkled white T-shirt that read _Happy your Life!_ in black, thick brush strokes. Khaki shorts. Pink... what were those shoes? _Flip-flops?_

The other man observed Sasuke for a long moment in return. "Um, you don't look so good," he finally offered in return. "Are you sure you should be out of--"

"Shut up!" snapped Sasuke, then realized he didn't really want him to shut up. "Who are you? Where is this? Answer or I'll kill you!" The misleading stone, this man with eyes just like Naruto's – the confusion was burning in Sasuke's stomach not unlike the food had the day before. He wanted answers, dammit! He had had _enough_ of this bullshit--

The man blinked back at him with those _eyes_. His answer came out calm, calmer than it should have considering the situation.

"My name is Natto – um, I mean, Uzumaki Minato. Natto is what people call me, though. You're at the Memorial Stone Plaza of the Konoha Hidden Fort." He grinned, probably to be reassuring. Sasuke could only describe the expression as... stupid-looking. "Can I ask you some questions too?"

Sasuke shook his head. Natto? Was this some sort of joke? Who the hell would be happy being named after something disgusting? And _what the fuck was the point of this genjutsu??_

"No," he realized he was saying, over and over again. "No, no, no, no..."

Natto – or Minato, whoever the fuck he was – and why was he named after a former Hokage – and why did he sound like he was related to Naruto, who he knew had no relatives--- looked at him and suddenly, the curious look on his face was gone, replaced by an almost... _wretched_ expression, in the most _painful_ sympathy that cut right to Sasuke's fucking _soul_, and Sasuke knew suddenly that he had to make this person – apparition – shut his mouth forever because if he heard the next thing out of his mouth he would break into a million pieces and Madara would have won or _worse_--

The Sharingan's reactivation ripping through his head like a knife, with a howl, he leaped at the man, pinning him to the ground with both hands around the neck, where was the kunai dammit how had he lost the--

And then, suddenly, Sasuke himself was pinned, by those blue eyes, which looked up at him without a trace of fear, with a calm serenity even with hands wrapped around his throat, and Uzumaki Minato asked him directly in a tone of wonder, "Who _are_ you?"

"I am--" he gritted his teeth, screamed it out--"UCHIHA SASUKE!!"

And_ that_ was the moment the Anbu finally arrived.

* * *

Review responses! ^^

karehiro - Thank you so much for your kind review! Your compliments encouraged me to continue this, and I have to admit, I've been having a blast ^_^ All three of your questions are astute and right on the mark, and I promise you, all will be answered in time _

negai - I am glad you are intrigued! So am I! ^^

Tia'RaHu - Thank you for your compliment! One of the things I am enjoying most about this is honing my technique. Let me know if anything doesn't read right to you. I welcome criticism!

Devonne - You know, you make a good point about the job _ In any case, I was transferred a few weeks ago and my life has improved greatly since! Though, I guarantee you I will be in the same position as yourself when my contract runs out this fall. *trembles* I will enjoy the good times while I can, anyway...

Also, your guess about the clone body is certainly in the ballpark! But, the truth is slightly more complex :D And don't worry, physical conditioning and training are in the future as well! (...keep reading? XD) Lastly, let me know if the fanfic blog doesn't enable anonymous posting - I am far less computer savvy than I may seem. _


	7. Chapter 7

Sasuke next saw daylight when the hood was ripped off his head. Or perhaps "harsh lamp light" was a more accurate way to put it. It glinted off the animal masks hovering in the darkness beyond, and nothing else.

"Seat him," said one, a grimacing tiger. Sasuke was plunked down somewhat more firmly than was comfortable on a narrow stool.

"Orders?" asked another, from behind a blank-eyed falcon.

"Secure him," came another voice, this one from a pebbled lizard's visage. "No special measures. Wait for further instructions."

"Understood," said the falcon, and Sasuke's hands were jerked unceremoniously downwards as they were tied to a ring on the floor.

Sasuke opened his mouth, took a few milliseconds to find his rasping voice. "I see you took your sweet--"

The falcon swept a gag into his mouth with precision speed, cutting off his retort.

_Well,_ thought Sasuke, staring up at the gleaming, expressionless masks, _this genjutsu got a lot more realistic all of a sudden. _

He had never studied this part – at least, not in the Academy – but he was pretty certain what would come next. Undoubtedly beyond the reach of the pale circle of light in the center of this room, there were various... _implements_ that would encourage him to tell them everything they wanted to know. What they were, and what they would do to him, was entirely up to Madara's imagination.

Sasuke could hardly wait.

He was on the edge of madness, to be sure, and he knew it, but a larger and larger part of his was whispering, "Bring it on." Bring on the pain, the fear, the hatred – bring on the feelings that would ground him in reality, the feelings that he knew he could resist Madara with. Replace the subtle whisperings of confusion bubbling up from the depths of his mind—_Itachi's name on the Leaf monument?_-- with the stark clarity of pain.

_Nothing I suffer,_ he thought in a rather deranged way, _is anything compared to what Itachi suffered..._

He had merely lost everything he loved, after all. Itachi had been made to destroy it with his own hands.

Behind the gag he grinned savagely. Bring it on, indeed.

"Cocky," commented the tiger.

"Await orders," commanded the lizard.

"It isn't like we can't imagine what they'll be," replied the tiger.

"Await orders," repeated the lizard, an edge to its voice.

"Understood." The tiger was silent then, looking down at Sasuke.

The silence continued for some time.

Not one of them moved. Sasuke would be damned if he lost control before they did.

_Bring it on, Madara. _

Three _clangs_ at an unseen door somewhere behind the tiger's head broke the silence abruptly.

"Tiger," ordered the lizard with no inflection. The tiger vanished into the blackness.

The conversation that followed was muffled, probably purposefully so. There were jutsus for that purpose as well. It took nearly a minute for the tiger to appear back in the circle of light.

"Deer wants to interrogate verbally," it reported, with what Sasuke imagined was just the slightest hint of disappointment. "No extreme measures. Basic safety inspection."

"Understood," said the falcon, and abruptly Sasuke found his head jerked back, and two fingers shoved roughly down his throat. He gagged, would have vomited if there had been anything in his stomach to vomit up.

"No cyanide pills," the falcon confirmed in a tone with no inflection. "No hidden gas bombs."

Another hand grabbed Sasuke's eyes, pulling the lids wide. For a second Sasuke flashed back to having his eyes plucked out in Itachi's genjutsu – braced himself--

"No sign of particular ability aside from reported by the witnesses," the lizard continued. "Tiger."

Three seconds later, Sasuke was naked.

"No marks on skin. No weapons hidden on body." There was a pause, sadism somehow leaking into mere silence. "Request permission to do final check."

"Permission granted," said the lizard.

Sasuke went white hot, then cold with humiliation as the tiger performed the "final check" on a place he couldn't imagine anyone with a shred of honor planting a bomb. He clamped his teeth around the gag and vowed, he would not cry out--

"Enough," said Lizard a little tersely. "Bring the prisoner uniform."

Less than ten seconds later, Sasuke was clothed.

"Hood the prisoner," ordered Lizard, and Sasuke was thrust back into darkness.


	8. Chapter 8

This time when they ripped off the hood, the world spun around him. Sasuke gritted his teeth, forced his eyes to _focus. _He looked up, across the long table stretching in front of him.

Nara Shikamaru sat at the far end.

_Ridiculous,_ Sasuke's brain quickly corrected, pepper-gray roots and fine wrinkles around the man's narrowed eyes registering belatedly-- _this man is 40 at least._ _Shikamaru's father_—but this man lacked the distinctive scars across his cheeks. _Another Nara?_ He hadn't thought the clan was all that large.

His peripheral vision took in the mask lying face down in front of the man, slightly off to the side. As if the man had laid it there. As if he couldn't be bothered. His manner seemed outwardly casual, too, elbows resting on the table, hands crossed in front of his mouth, fingers folded in a very particular way.

But the ice-cold fury radiating off of him spoke otherwise.

Sasuke met his steely glare without fear. That lazy good-for-nothing in his Academy class had never intimidated him. Neither would this lookalike.

The tension stretched between them, a thick presence in the air. The Anbu stood at attention, on the very edges of Sasuke's view. Nothing moved.

"...I am hard-pressed to explain to myself why I did not just order your death and be done with it."

Even the drawling_ voice_ sounded like goddamn Shikamaru. A burst of laughter nearly escaped Sasuke's mouth, the scene was so _surreal_-- shaking himself, he snarled out the reply he'd been preparing in his head during the bumpy ride from the torture chamber.

"If _you're_ the one who sent those poor excuses for ninja on their last mission, then you have more important things to explain to yours--"

A hand tightened around his throat like a vise, nearly jerking Sasuke back off the chair. Sasuke's eyes flew wide, world suddenly crystal-clear with adrenaline--catching inexplicably on the stained ceiling, the shaft of sun from the high windows, the motes of dust in the air--

"Let him go."

Sasuke slumped forward, coughing, the oxygen a little more welcome than he would have liked. _Dammit._

"I need to ask him some questions anyway." The man's voice sounded tired. He broke the set of his hands, massaged his forehead with two fingers. "So _damn_ troublesome."

Sasuke forced his breathing back under his control. _Focus._ He needed to be aware, evaluating his surroundings. He needed to be impartial. Reading beneath the beneath. Why would they send a poor copy of Shikamaru here? How would Madara even know who Shikamaru was? Or was this another Nara he had known long ago?

The man looked up again, fixing his cold gaze back on Sasuke's. "Tell me your name."

"Uchiha Sasuke." He spat the last syllable. _Calm, stay calm._ "Don't pretend you don't know it. I'm getting tired of repeating myself."

One slanted eyebrow twitched. "I see. What are you doing here, then, Uchiha Sasuke?"

Sasuke looked at him incredulously. Did the different people involved in this operation not _share information_ with one another? By that measure, did the shattered fragments of Madara's _mind_ keep in touch?

"I was _brought here._ By two ninjas who are, apparently, _from this fort_."

There was no immediate follow-up. The man's eyes focused inwards as if in thought. Rage began to coil in Sasuke's stomach, eating through his calm like acid.

What sort of bullshit, slop-shod genjutsu _was_ this? And how was it _still _ensnaring him? He spoke through clenched teeth.

"Though the quality of Leaf ninjas _does_ seems to have gone down lately."

"Is that so," the man replied, voice unruffled, eyes flicking up to search Sasuke's face. "Glad to be back, Uchiha Sasuke?"

"Judging from the welcome I've received so far?" Sasuke laughed harshly. "Not so much, no."

"And what were you doing," the man continued, "_before_ you came on this journey to Konoha Village?"

Images flashed through Sasuke's mind – tanks, the mole—for a second he wasn't quite sure what to say. He decided on the truth. It wasn't anything Madara didn't already know.

"I was attempting to assassinate the 6th Hokage."

At this, the man's eyes focused in on his face like lasers.

"Were you now."

"I'd have succeeded if the Mizukage hadn't interfered in what wasn't her business," snarled Sasuke. He couldn't believe he was stuck in this stupid genjutsu. He was an _Uchiha,_ dammit, the clan that had written the final _word_ on genjutsu! "Hell, I'd have succeeded even _then_, if the Tsuchikage hadn't also decided to intervene. When it really wasn't any of his business either."

"Hmm," said the man, voice still casual, though his eyes remained riveted to Sasuke's face. "Tell me your age, Uchiha Sasuke."

This entire exercise was getting closer and closer to farce. Sasuke couldn't help rolling his eyes as he snapped, "Sixteen."

"Hmm. Come to think of it. Would you mind reminding me of today's date?"

"_Date?_" Sasuke asked in disbelief. They _had_ to be mocking him now. This was Madara pulling a goddamn _prank._ "I've been in _captivity_ for the last several days. I have no idea what the date is. What _is_ this? Are you trying to fulfill your prisoner question quota?! Are you _all _damn fools?!" His voice had risen to a shout. To _hell_ with calm! He was going to _destroy them--_

The falcon's hand tightened threateningly on his wrist.

"I'd like to think not," replied the man neutrally. "Who do you work for, Uchiha Sasuke?"

"No one," snarled Sasuke, lunging forward against the falcon's firm grip. "I work for no one but myself. You would do well to remember that." _Madara. _

"I see. And your allies?"

"I have gathered a team to support my goals," Sasuke ground out, still seeing red. "I would not call them _allies. _They are expendable."

"And what are those goals, Uchiha Sasuke?"

Sasuke knew better than to enumerate any goals he hadn't told Madara already, but he was happy to rub them in this bastard's face.

"I will kill the 6th Hokage." He leaned closer. "I will kill the Elders." He allowed himself a smile, felt it spreading across his face like a wildfire out of control, let it-- "And I will destroy Konoha."_ And you, you backstabbing blood traitor._ He imagined he could see that swirling mask right through the overlay of the Nara's stony face. _Oh yes. I will _certainly_ kill you. _

"Hmm," said the man, but no further question was forthcoming. He recrossed his fingers, leaned his chain into them, and closed his eyes as if in deep thought.

The Anbu stood like sentinels. Water dripped somewhere in the background.

Sasuke wished they would just get on with torturing him already.

Madara surely wouldn't do the dirty work himself; there would be numerous opportunities to break the genjutsu when the administrators recklessly assumed he couldn't possibly be in his right mind. It was his last best chance to escape, to get out of here and concentrate on making all his goals a reality. His last best chance to recompense his stung honor.

He would also appreciate not having to spend one more minute staring at this man's too-familiar face.

"Are there any traps or unusual jutsus on his person?" This time, the man was asking a question of the silent others in the room.

"None visible through a standard check. Sir." The lizard's answer was prompt.

"What about the eyes?"

"It will not be possible to fully examine them without a medical expert, sir. Based on current observation, the right eye does appear to possess the two-tomoe form of the Sharingan."

_Only two? _thought Sasuke, then crushed the feeling ruthlessly. Nothing Madara said – or even implied – could be taken as truth.

He'd had enough of this, anyway.

"If you aren't going to ask any more questions of me, take me away!" he commanded, glaring back up at the incompetent figure across the table, wondering if whoever was butchering this genjutsu would respond to the authority in his voice. "I've had enough of your insults to the Uchiha name."

One eye opened across the table. "That's an interesting thing to say. Uchiha Sasuke." His other eye opened. "You seem to think that you are in a position to give orders to those who have you in captivity. Some things never change." He muttered the last line. "But, you're right, this is a very troublesome interview. And there are certainly people in this room who have better things to do with their day. One last question." His voice couldn't have been more mild, but his gaze zeroed in on Sasuke's face like a targeted projectile.

"Where do you think you _really_ are? Uchiha Sasuke."

At first Sasuke didn't understand the question. Something was niggling at the back of his mind, something important.

Something is off.

You seem to think that you are in a position to give orders to those who have you in captivity, then man had just said. Some things never change...

Some things never change.

And suddenly Sasuke realized, _this man knows me. _

From Sound? From Akatsuki? No--

"A dungeon in Leaf," he answered without thinking, and suddenly realized, _I really am. I am back in Leaf. _

_I am in the custody of ninjas from_ Leaf.

"Hmm," said the man across the table. He tapped his fingers together, one after the other, in a perfect cadence. "Hmm..."

_Not Madara,_ thought Sasuke, mind somehow blank and whirling at the same time. _I was wrong. Madara isn't involved at all--_

The man slammed both palms face down into the pitted wood. "This is all so damn _troublesome_!" Glaring at Sasuke like he had personally poisoned his morning coffee, he looked more like an aged Nara Shikamaru than Sasuke had thought possible. Sasuke stared back in a state of shock. _Not Madara--_

_I just told them _everything--

"Medium security. Relaxed conditions. Hold him until I give further orders." He massaged the bridge of his nose with one hand, muttering under his breath. "I have a terrible premonition the Hokage is going to want to _meet _him."

"Any further... examinations, sir?"

"Not at the moment," sighed the man, rising from the chair he was sitting in, revealing – Sasuke head jerked back in shock - his full-length Councilor's kimono. "Maybe we'll be fortunate and he'll be too busy to bother. But if he isn't... you know the Hokage." He stepped away from the chair with a swoosh of robes. "He doesn't like to see things broken."

"Yes, sir." Before the Lizard had even finished speaking, the hood had been replaced.

The last thing he saw before the darkness was the man looking back at him.

He caught no flash of pity in the Leaf Elder's eyes.

* * *

A/N: OKAY YOU GUYS. I know this was the 2nd half of Chapter 7, but I figured screw it, now it's Chapter 8, and has a VERY significant change to it... so make sure to skim it one more time!


	9. Chapter 9

_Leaf. It's Leaf._

Sasuke sat in darkness, as relaxed conditions apparently didn't involve removing the hood. His mind spun wildly.

_It explains everything. The shoddy quality of the genjutsu. The evidence of different hands at play. All the little details that seem oddly familiar, too familiar for Madara to possibly--_

He could see it now. It was all so _clear. _

They had caught him in a genjutsu, immediately after the Tsuchikage had brought his attempted assassination of Danzo to an abrupt end. Then, they'd had to switch back and forth between different users as they transported him across the countryside. Not everything he had seen was a genjutsu. In fact, some things were probably only... modified. The cart came to mind, as did the ramshackle cityscape of Leaf—which had been recently destroyed by Pein, hadn't it, of course it would be in disarray--

Some sort of chakra seal had been placed on him, blocking the full use of his Sharingan. Not even that had been done very well, though. He had broken through soon enough. If only he'd pushed through his doubts, earlier in the coach--

_I told them everything._ Everything.

_They haven't killed me. _

_ They really should have killed me by now. _

It was almost a discrepancy too far, but there was still a large possible factor he could attribute this discrepancy to. A large, orange, aspect that had sworn, _no matter what--_

_This time I really will kill him, _vowed Sasuke, as rage streaked the blackness in front of his eyes with white. _Stupid—interfering—_Naruto!

_Calm down,_ he told himself, even though true calm was a lost cause. _There's a silver lining to this situation. _

He was almost certainly inside the boundaries of the Hidden Leaf, or what was left of it after Pein's attack. Both Danzo and the Elders were well within his reach. And the current leadership of Leaf, as he'd surmised, had a weakness when it came to a certain loud-mouthed--

_Naruto, _swore Sasuke to himself, _I am going to make you regret every soft bone in your demon-fox-enhanced body. Right before I knock you unconscious and burn your damn village down. _Again.

And where the fuck _was_ Madara?

Sasuke shrugged the last question off. It wasn't as if the man was particularly known for his loyalty, after all. He'd certainly betrayed him at the Kage meeting. Perhaps that was meant to be the end?

That line of thought ended abruptly as he realized, belatedly, that the man he's just been talking to might actually have _been_ Nara Shikamaru.

Then again he doubted that Shikamaru had the talent to cast an aging genjutsu on himself, so there had clearly been others involved. Alternatively, it could have been one of the Elders, though he suspected they were too cowardly to take such a risk. Mind racing, he guessed—realized?-- that Chouno and Shikajiro had been ninjas from another fort, borrowing convenient identities, yet completely misinterpreting the personal bonds there. And that just begged the question--

Had the blue-eyed man actually been Naruto?

Actually, it made a lot of sense. The stupid clothes, stupid grin--even the stupid name the guy had given – by the gods, it was so obviously Naruto. Sasuke raved at himself in his own mind, hands straining against the bindings. How could he have been so blind?? More importantly, how had he allowed himself to be _affected?_

But there was no use berating himself about the past. He was now firmly in the grip of his enemies. He was going to need a new strategy—

Before he even had a chance to try and think of one, the creak of his cell door opening hit his ears.

"It's time to go." Lizard's voice was clipped and neutral. Strong hands grabbed his upper arm, pulling him upright, his mind spinning more from his racing thoughts than from the rush of blood to his extremities. "You will be interrogated in the presence of the Hokage."

*

Sasuke knew enough about the process now to keep his eyes tightly closed as he felt the hood being ripped off. Moments later he opened them slowly, wincing as light flooded in.

He was no longer in a dark underground room, but a well-lit underground auditorium. The nearest Anbu, standing on his right, was Lizard. His hands were being held behind his back, probably still by Falcon. Tiger stood in front of him and to the left, facing them directly.

And beside him, and behind him – Sasuke blinked as he took it all in – were yet more Anbu, one with a mask like a buffalo with jutting horns, another with jaguar spots, yet another with 8 "eyes" like a spider – his eyes slid past the rest, though he knew there were more. Ten, perhaps. They stood at the ready. The hand of one openly rested on his sword.

Behind them all, a shield swirled, distorting the air.

One Anbu crouched in the corner, nearly out of view. Her black-gloved hands touched the ground. Generating the shield Sasuke realized. She had a cat mask on – that was the last detail he could see clearly. The shielding jutsu, stretching across the entire far end of the room, blurred all features beyond general shapes.

However, the iconic triangular hat the lone figure seated beyond was wearing made things clear enough.

_The Hokage._

Danzo's scarred face flashed across Sasuke's mind, and his muscles tensed involuntarily. They had handed it all to him on a silver platter. His revenge, his redemption—how could they be so _stupid--_

_Not now,_ he told himself. _You are surrounded by enemy ninja in a weakened state._ _Your best bet right now is to play along..._

If he didn't play this right, this room could easily become his execution chamber.

Falcon squeezed his wrists as if in warning.

One man, shorter than the rest, shuffled forward. The other Anbu moved out of his way. Swallowing, Sasuke faced him, preparing for what was to come.

* * *

A/N: OH MY LORD. These two chapters? Were like sh!tting a brick sideways, not even kidding. Sasuke didn't want to let me into his head any more than Madara...

Well, in any case they're out now. We are seriously moving somewhere now, I swear, even if I am writing at the pace of War and Peace... I swear no detail I've included is _really _extraneous.

Also, Chapter 10 only needs a light edit, and Chapter 11 is written in my head. So there should be more chapters following soon-ish.

Lastly, for all the people who have favorited and reviewed me: I love you :) Reading your reviews encourages me to continue, as always. Thank you so much.


	10. Chapter 10

To Sasuke's surprise, the shorter man abruptly halted about ten feet away from him, as if awaiting orders. The other Anbu, too, shifted a bit, a few even looking behind them.

From the back, almost on the other side of the shield, a lone figure came forward. Sasuke riveted his gaze on him as all the other ninja made way. _The Anbu leader,_ he thought. _Of course they--_ then his head rocked back in surprise.

The man was wearing a dog-shaped mask, very familiar to Sasuke. All too familiar.

It was Kakashi's.

_If this is the Leaf's interrogation,_ Sasuke thought, _there's no reason for it _not_ to be Kakashi..._

But – his eyes flicking over the figure again and again as it took its time walking forward – if this was Kakashi, there were a few differences. This man seemed somewhat older. His shoulders were muscular, whereas Kakashi had been a leaner man. And his hair, though spiky, was black with only a few hints of gray.

But Sasuke could not shake the lingering feeling that he_ knew_ this man.

The man came to stand beside the shorter one. "Do what you have to, Horukichi," he commanded._ His voice is also different, _Sasuke thought. _Deeper. _

But even so, he was _sure_ he recognized it.

_Even your genjutsu is second rate... Kakashi. _

"Yes, sir," replied Horukichi. To Sasuke's surprise, he then reached up and removed his mask.

He wasn't the only one surprised. There was a brief and somewhat unprofessional murmur from a few of the other Anbu, including Tiger.

Horukichi's face was so odd as to be called deformed – his broad nose stretched nearly from one side to the other, and his eyes were mere slits. His thin, wet lips worked a few times before he spoke in a somewhat defensive tone. "I can't do the job right with it on."

The next thing he knew, those lips were inches away from Sasuke's own. He recoiled in horror – Falcon grabbed his head, shoving it back where it was.

Little snuffling noses came out of the hideous face in front of him – and then, the nostrils flared, increasing nearly three times larger than the laws of nature should have allowed them to be.

It took all of Sasuke's willpower not to grimace openly. He had never thought he would have considered the Inuzuka... well... dignified in their olfactory powers. But compared to _this?_

The man sniffed Sasuke, zooming in on the left side of his head for some reason. His nose got so close it was almost touching his hair – Sasuke could feel it being pulled away from his head, being pulled into those nostrils...

He wondered if _trying_ to strike out would make this more bearable.

Horukichi leaned back, nostrils still twitching. "He smells like two different people." He pointed a pudgy finger to Sasuke's face. "Here is one of them..." then to the left side of his head, "...here is a little part of another." Leaning forward, he sniffed Sasuke's shoulder. "More of that one down here." He licked his lips nervously. "You're going to need a medical exam to know for sure, but I think the two chakras are blended about..." Sasuke had to clamp down on a rather unmanly sharp, high noise in his throat as the mole-man nearly laid his nostrils upon it. "Here!"

"What can you tell about the rest of the body's chakra?" The voice from the dog-mask startled Sasuke this time with its... _familiarity_. Where _had_ he head that voice before? Kakashi must have changed it through genjutsu to someone else's-- "Are there any other disruptions?"

Sasuke didn't see the order given for Lizard to step over and yank open the prisoner's uniform, exposing Sasuke more than he would like – no small feat considering the outfit he had worn to accommodate the Curse Seal. But the image of the mole-man sniffing his bare stomach would stay burned into his retinas for far, far longer than was preferable.

At long last, Horukichi stepped away. "No, sir," was his simple answer. "It doesn't seem tampered with below the neck."

"You do not sense any unusual connections to the outside, then?"

"No, sir."

"No pre-programmed activations?"

"No, sir."

"Evidence of mental tampering?"

Horukichi gave the Anbu a slightly bemused glance. "That is out of my purview, sir. But given his delusion, I can only assume--"

"That's enough, Horukichi." The Anbu leader cut him off. "You may stand down."

"Yes, sir." Horukichi replaced his mask. It glinted brown in the light.

_Wait a second, _thought Sasuke. _That's not an Anbu mask. _

He recognized it from the materials Kabuto had taken off one of the corpses he liked to gather as a hobby. It had been tacked on the wall like a trophy – the earthy-brown mask of the Special Corps of Iwagakure.

_What the hell?_ thought Sasuke, abruptly baffled all over again. Why was there a ninja from Earth Country in this room? Why would Leaf even see the need to _pretend_--

"I am going to ask you some questions now," said the dog-mask in an even tone, interrupting his thoughts. "Answer clearly and honestly. What is your name?"

The interrogation had begun.

He wasn't ready, but he had no choice.

"Uchiha Sasuke."

Sasuke guessed his best hope was to play it as straight as possible. There was still the possibility _they _might reveal something instead. _No point in trying to hide anything now, anyway._

"Is this your given name?"

"Yes."

"Who gave you this name?"

"My mother and father," Sasuke ground out. Why the hell did they keep asking him this? Did they expect him to give a different answer? "Their names were Uchiha Fugaku and Mikoto. They were members of the Uchiha clan, born and raised in the Hidden Leaf village. I am sure if you check the birth records in your own records office, you will find them shortly--"

Falcon jerked Sasuke's arms behind him and up, nearly dislocating his arms from his sockets. Fireworks exploded before Sasuke's eyes and he couldn't avoid a small gasp of pain--

"Enough," said the dog-mask abruptly. "I want his honest reaction. Hold him loosely." The pain in Sasuke's shoulders eased, and he took a few deep breaths before looking back up at the man in front of him. _Play it straight. _

"Tell me your date of birth."

"July 17, Common Era 497."

"Tell me your current age."

"16."

"Tell me the current date. As near as you can guess it."

Yet again this question? "Late October. Common Era 513."

There was a barely disguised ripple, then, across the room, of—something. Sasuke snapped his gaze away, looked around. Only the hollow animal masks stared back at him.

The dog-mask was silent for a moment. "And yet you just spent three and a half days traveling through the spring countryside."

_Shit! _Sasuke realized. He had planned to play this interview straight, but _what _sort of straight, he hadn't solidified in his mind. "Yes," he offered, rather lamely.

"You are confused." It wasn't a question. "You are confused about where you are right now. Yes or no?"

Sasuke hesitated before answering. It was a trap, it had to be a trap, but he couldn't see his way out of it. _Damn you, Kakashi, you always were clever. _Sweat trickled down his brow. _Play it straight._ Sealed, restrained, weak and tired – he literally had no other choice.

_ Shit._

He prayed that in some way, somehow, the interrogators might be tricked into giving him they key.

"Yes," he admitted.

"You aren't sure this is the Hidden Leaf."

"Yes."

"You aren't sure that it is really the Anbu who are interrogating you."

"Yes."

"You suspect some ulterior motive."

Sasuke didn't want to answer that, but he had been led straight into it. _Damn you._ "Yes."

The dog-mask was silent for a long moment before speaking more quietly, such that Sasuke had to strain to hear him. "Tell me about the last thing you remember. Before things stopped making sense."

Sasuke blinked several times. The last time things made sense? If he had been strong – or maybe if he had been exceptionally weak – he would have said, _the morning before my brother killed everyone I ever loved._ But no. _Play it straight. _

"I was at the 5 Kage Summit in Snow Country." Attempting to kill the man who sat behind the swirling shield, no doubt. Sasuke gritted his teeth, dredged up the burning embers of his anger. "I was attempting to bring one of the instigators of the _massacre of my clan_ to justice." Yes, he was right – he was _right._ Even if they killed him now, they couldn't take that away from him--

"Who was with you?" asked the dog-mask in a rather calmer voice than Sasuke would have expected from a man who'd just hear Sasuke declare his village's leader a murderer, and announce he intended to kill him. "Who accompanied you on your mission?"

"A team I assembled for that purpose." Sasuke suddenly realized, with a shock, that he might be writing the death warrants of Team Taka. "They followed my orders as a means of achieving their own goals. My goals were not their goals--"

The dog-mask interrupted Sasuke mid-ramble. "What was the last face you saw? Before things stopped making sense."

There was a tension in his body. It seemed like this question was important, though Sasuke could not imagine why.

Sasuke thought carefully. "The Tsuchikage," he answered finally. "He was attempting to kill me with a cube jutsu."

Somehow that answer brought up, finally, all the cognitive dissonance between Sasuke's world he had known and the world he seemed to be in.

He realized, to his horror, that his hands were shaking, and not because Falcon was holding them too tightly. His vision swam in and out. 

_Control, Sasuke. Control! _

"I am not entirely sure," he said with all the dignity he could muster, "how I got from there to here."

"Genjutsu," said the dog-mask, his voice crisp like he was used to giving orders, "is what you suspect. Yes or no?"

Sasuke merely stared up at him. He couldn't even decide whether he wanted to do it angrily or--or--

Apparently the answer written on his face must have been clear enough. "Of course you do," muttered the man, almost as if to himself. "You don't want to admit it to me. You think I am the caster. Or one of the casters. You think you can break out of it, because you are an Uchiha. Yes or no?"

The trembling in Sasuke's hands increased, spreading now to his calf muscles. _Kakashi. You know me well – too well. _

"Yes or no?" The dog-mask's voice had sharpened, deepened, slipping past Sasuke's defenses and hitting something deep within Sasuke's brain that made him speak the truth before he fully realized it.

"Yes--" He bit his tongue, cursed himself. He had answered almost as if--

Was Kakashi using... his _father's_ voice?

_Fuck, _Sasuke would _never__ forgive_ him for that--_betrayal_--rage rose again out of confusion--

"You are not observing particularly well," snapped the man, almost as if Sasuke's admission had pissed him off too. "You should know genjutsu better than this."

"I'm an Uchiha!" shouted Sasuke, inner voice howling wordlessly in his head, straining forwards against Falcon's grip--"I _know_ what genjutsu can do! You think you know genjutsu, that's because you've never even had the good _fortune_ to be exposed--" Falcon yanked him back onto the stool.

"Oh really?" Now the man sounded almost amused. "Let me rephrase that. You should know how to _read your surroundings_ better." He spread his arms out to encompass the whole room. "Nothing at all in this room seems _unusual_ to you? Outside of your expectations? To say nothing of the countryside you traveled through on your way here?"

"I'll tell you what's unusual--" snarled Sasuke. His eyes were stinging, the trembling was at his shoulders now-- his mind was blank, _blank--_ _rage—_but the Sharingan wouldn't come, only a pounding, screaming _headache_--

_I'm going to die. _

Immediately there was calm in the storm.

Of _course_ he was going to die. It was only logical that he would. He had no strategy, no access to the Mangekyo, nothing left to him but the cold, bitter truth. It was the epitome of logic, logic that had eluding his grasp for what seemed like an eternity, that the next minutes would be his last on earth, and even though that thought somehow perversely _relieved _him--

_ Like hell _was he going to sit here and be lectured by a man who had so utterly failed him.

"I find it unusual that you wear Hatake Kakashi's mask, but don't bother to _reveal_ yourself as Hatake Kakashi. You despicable _coward._"

The man let out a small bark of surprised laughter. Sasuke screamed right over it--

"And that the Anbu in this _hidden chamber in Leaf_ aren't even all wearing _Leaf_ _masks_! Who was in charge of the set for this interrogation anyway? And why send such fucking incompetents to gather me at first? Were you underestimating me? Trying to insult my intelligence?! And your _stupid fucking set-up!_ As if I could have waltzed out of Mist Country in a cart without seeing a single Mist-nin! As if Konoha would _ever _rent out the space outside its wall as a gambling town! As if Uchiha Itachi's name would have ever been _carved _on the _memorial stone_." He snarled this last one, saw the reaction jolt through the man like a bolt of lightning.

_ Oh, how I _wish _I could send a bolt of lightning through you—but the gods never did grant any of my wishes—never the ones I _really_ wanted—and as long as we're at it, I'll at least take that idiot's stupid dreams down with me--_

"Tell me, you sniveling_ bastards_, where in this room is Uzumaki Naruto? This incompetence stinks of him. Tell him that he can't make any _grand gestures_ to get me to give up my revenge. Tell him that he can't hide behind genjutsu. The Leaf will PAY for THE MURDER OF MY CLAN!"

The words ran out as if they were on a tape. Sasuke's throat closed up, his vision swam—_are they choking me? A jutsu? Nobody's moving—_his own breath was in his ear, shrill--

He looked up one last time, so that he could see the face of the one who killed him—it was important—the clan was about to end forever and it was _important--_

His eyes caught the shimmer of the shield, and heard a panicked female voice call out "Hokage-sama--"

"It's okay, Kagami," rang out the voice, garbled as he passed straight through the shield, but recognizable, immediately recognizable. "He's not a threat. Not like we feared."

Sasuke's blood froze in his veins.

_They wouldn't--_

The triangular hat was removed with one weathered hand. Sasuke could only stare.

Uzumaki Naruto stood in the garb of the Hokage.

His eyes, blue as ever, bored straight into Sasuke's. His face had long ago lost all traces of its baby fat, replaced with a strong jaw and a few stress wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His hair, mostly golden still with streaks of silver, wafted lightly across his face. The whisker marks on his cheeks were no longer visible. His voice, when he spoke, was ridiculously stern.

"There's no genjutsu in this room right now, Sasuke. No one is trying to trick you."

"Naruto," said the dog-mask in exasperation. "_The subject_ is just trying to piss someone off enough to gain an opening."

"I know!" Naruto – _the fuck—even as a joke how could they--_ nodded. "But that means things are clear enough, don't you think?"

"There are a lot of unanswered questions--"

"Most of which can be solved with a semi-decent medical exam." He squinted his eyes, peering across the room at where Sasuke sat unable to even _move._ "By the gods, he's like your little _clone_."

"What--" Sasuke managed to get out. "How—what--" This could not be happening. It _simply could not_ be happening. Hadn't he called them out on it? Wasn't the confusion supposed to _go away now?! Why _were they_ still--_

"It's okay," said Naruto—_this can't be_--voice smoothing to become almost gentle as he walked forward, coming to a stop besides the dog-mask. "I know you're confused. But it's going to be okay."

"We don't know who created him," snapped the dog-mask, "we don't know what he was made for--"

"You've already decided though, right?" Naruto—_the fuck are they_--cut him off. "He can activate the Sharingan. He's absolutely _convinced_ about the revenge thing, but he didn't just start killing people. He even has the shitty Uchiha attitude--he's definitely yours! One way or another." He clapped dog-mask on the back with a grim laugh. "Besides, it'd be a waste of a good potential ninja, don't you think? And we can't afford to waste any good ninjas nowadays." His voice had gone from laughing to deadly serious in a less-than-five-second speech.

_No, this is wrong—the Naruto I know could never—_

Sasuke thought he knew, suddenly, the truly logical explanation for everything that had happened to him and it was _worse than death--_

"This is unprofessional, Naruto," said the dog-mask coldly, reaching his hand up to his face.

The world seemed to narrow, slow, focus around that one movement, as Sasuke's heart pounded loudly in his ears.

He was wrong. He had to be wrong. _Absolutely_ this half-mad theory would be proved just as wrong as the others--

Fingers fixed around the edges in slow motion.

"You continue to amaze me in your improbable avoidance of assassination."

It slid off slowly, revealing the forehead, the _eyes--_

Somewhere deep inside of himself, Sasuke felt a scream of protest forming. But it seemed to have been caught about halfway down his throat. It had frozen shut, just like the rest of him,protesting reality, protesting _everything_ because this _absolutely could not be--_

"Not too concerned as long as you're still looking out for me... "

The mask slipped down, down, down...

"Sasuke."

Uchiha Sasuke stared up—_stared down_— back into his own face.

* * *

A/N: Long chapter is long. But also PENULTIMATE! *gives thumbs up* Poooor Sasuke. I won't promise this will be the last revelation... but hopefully... the most shocking? (Man, the person in the last review who predicted pain for Sasuke in this chapter _totally _called it. _;;) I, for one, think a panic attack is justified in this sort of situation... all I can say is that _I _would have had one a lot earlier than Sasuke. ^^;

Other than that, reviews are love! I'm still 2 chapters behind my own schedule... any encouragement you could give for the task ahead would be appreciated greatly ;_;


	11. Chapter 11

Chakra prickled at the edge of Sasuke's consciousness. Someone was touching his face lightly, probing for something._ Karin?_ he wondered for a second, then _don't her fingers have callouses? _

"Ah, see, he's already waking up."

Sasuke's eyes snapped open at the unfamiliar voice.

A man in a white coat stood at his bedside. Not just a white coat – Sasuke took it in, blinking – white hair, white eyes, white everything. He smiled directly down at him, expression blankly pleasant. "Good morning, Uchiha Sasuke."

Inexplicably, relief washed through Sasuke at the sound (_finally_) of his name. He kept his features impassive as he tried to prop himself up on one elbow. His head had stopped hurting, though the light seemed a tad too bright in his smarting eyes. "Where am I? What happened?"

"Well." The man's pleasant smile didn't falter. "I've just finished a proper medical exam of you. I have a few things to discuss with you as well, ah, Sasuke-kun. May I call you that?"

Sasuke sculpted his features into a glare. The man was older than him, but not by _that _much.

"My apologies," continued the man, looking actually apologetic, "but I think that will be necessary to – um – keep things straight for right now. If you'll bear with me for the moment--"

A snort from behind him perfectly paralleled Sasuke's own.

"There's no need to be _that_ polite."

Sasuke had thought it was a nightmare.

The man who had been standing behind the head of the bed stepped out, around, coming to loom over Sasuke and the nightmare had become reality once more.

"Uchiha-san," said the white man disapprovingly. "Sasuke-kun has been through a lot today."

The older man, still dressed in full Anbu gear sans mask, let out another snort.

"He can deal with it. This is how he deals with it." He leaned over then, something like a smile but more ghastly on his lips. "Right?"

Sasuke's blank mind snapped into gear at the challenge, which was good, because otherwise he might have started screaming or – worse. He glared back at the man, forcing himself to take every detail in.

His earlier impression hadn't been wrong. The face was his own.

Undoubtedly, completely, utterly_, _it was_ his, _the face that had looked back at him from every mirror he'd ever looked into. The cowlick that had dogged him since birth stuck up in the back, the mouth settling down into what looked like the customary scowl, now with a few wrinkle lines, the jet-black hair showing only a few hints of gray--

The eyes. The left eye looked down at him, black as ever, while the right eye remained closed.

Sasuke assumed at first that it was closed from tiredness, then for effect. As the seconds wore on it occurred to him that it might not be _able_ to open.

"What the fuck happened to your eye?" Not the most polite or insightful thing to say, perhaps, but hostility towards this – this – _whatever he was_ was keeping Sasuke from going into an embarrassing fit of hysterics. He grimly figured that avoiding that might as well be his goal of the moment.

The smile that spread across the other man's face, grim but pleased, was hard to take his eyes off of. "You know what Izanagi is as well as I do."

_Izanagi?_ Oh yes – the monument stone in the Uchiha shrine – but that brought up a whole host of other questions. They must have reflected in his eyes before he could bring them to words, because the other man answered immediately.

"No, it isn't worth it. Wasn't worth it." His face twisted suddenly with indescribable bitterness. "Especially not for you. You only have one functioning Sharingan."

"I--"

"Mikiru will explain to you." The older man waved a hand in the direction of the man in white, who Sasuke had briefly forgotten about. "Don't—make a scene. No one here has time to deal with it. Try not to embarrass yourself by fainting again, either. You will listen and take in the information calmly. After his report, you will come with me on a tour of the city. There are several things you need to see. Understood?"

"Yes," said Sasuke automatically, still responding to that voice as if it was—well. No wonder he had thought it was his father's. His stomach gave a lurch sideways and he put a hand to it. How could he possibly want to vomit when there was nothing in his stomach to vomit up?

"Well, then. Sasuke-kun." The white-colored man cleared his throat, drawing attention to himself. "I will give the report, then. Feel free to stop me and clarify anything you need to." He smiled kindly.

Sasuke wished he wouldn't do that. Kindness was somehow not helpful to his current exercise of self-control.

Thankfully, the man continued immediately. "As you are probably already aware, you are in slightly... different circumstances than usual. You are a user of lightning chakra, yes?" Sasuke nodded. "The current... form you find yourself in seems to generate earth chakra. Though you seem to have already learned to use it in limited ways." The man sounded impressed. Sasuke nodded again, trying to ignore the roaring in his ears. "Your right eye has the Sharingan, but your left eye... seems to be incomplete. At the moment there is probably no way you can use it. But that-- well, I can't make any promises. But I will examine you again in the near future, once your overall health has improved."

A long pause followed. Sasuke turned to see the man looking at him with an indecipherable expression on his already inscrutable face.

"Mikiru." Both Sasuke and Mikiru, apparently, turned to look at the older man. "Relay all the information to him directly. Don't hold anything back." His face, too, was stony.

Another pause. "Understood," said Mikiru at last. "Very well then."

To Sasuke's surprise, he then sat down on Sasuke's bedside, leaning forward to look directly into Sasuke's face. "Sasuke-kun," he said in a quiet voice. "Do you understand where you are? Do you understand what year it is?"

Sasuke nodded his head. Then he shook it, slowly.

"The date is March 27th, Common Era 534." Mikiru's eyes did not waver from Sasuke's, catching him in their indeterminate depths. "You were discovered on a search-and-destroy and data reconnaissance mission in Sector 46 of the Mist Country, headed by Jounin Akimichi Chounosuke, assisted by Special Jounin Nara Shikajiro. The mission orders were to survey the reported Hidden Facility #3 of Mist, and destroy any... experiments found there. As you undoubtedly know, they did not entirely fulfill that mission. Jounin Akimichi made a personal decision to bring back one specimen alive – a specimen that seemed to bear some ties to the Uchiha clan. Are you following me so far?"

Sasuke had, at some point, ripped his gaze away to focus on the feathery white eyebrows just above the hypnotic Hyuuga eyes. He was listening but not thinking. Thinking would only cause unnecessary reactions right now. He nodded.

"I have looked over the data retrieved. It is incomplete and fragmentary. Whoever operated on you didn't keep comprehensive records. My current hypothesis is based on a combination of the testimonies of Jounin Akimichi and Special Jounin Nara, what little the data tells us, the Anbu's impressions from their general exam, my own medical examination of you, your own words and Uchiha-san's reflections." He took a deep breath. "This may not be easy to hear."

"Give it to him _straight._" The older man's words cut in like a slap.

Sasuke watched as the two eyebrows bunched together, looking like two caterpillars trying to climb towards one another.

"You are two people, Sasuke-kun. Neither of them is... yourself."

Sasuke idly wondered if the eyebrows could climb on top of one another, like real caterpillars.

"The person who – operated on you used one body as a base, and... portions of the other to add certain attributes. Basically, they added the Sharingan to what seems to have been an Earth Country ninja. This isn't – it's not as easy a process as you might suspect. I know you know of people who have had Sharingan implanted into them. Usually, they would not have the ability to turn the Sharingan on and off. However, since – your head is mostly Uchiha, you do seem to have the potential to control the Sharingan like a native. It's remarkable how well the two... parts of you are working together. Though according to the data and the condition of the Sharingan, I'm quite certain this wasn't the first body this surgery was attempted with."

The eyebrows kept twitching upwards and Sasuke wondered if they would jump right off the man's forehead, and come crawling across his sheets towards him.

"The real question we all have, Sasuke-kun, is why... why your memories seem to be of... of Uchiha Sasuke at 16 years of age. Though they are accurate, as verified by Uchiha-san. I gave you as complete a medical exam as I could, but all I could ascertain is that the original memories of the brain were completely wiped – amazing thoroughness, really – and that new ones have been programmed in. The process doesn't seem to be much different from Leaf Anbu techniques I've researched, but of course the question is where they got the replacement memories in the first place. You don't seem to have had a tracer placed into you, either, or any sort of a trigger. You don't... well, Sasuke-kun, you don't make a lot of sense."

The caterpillars rose high on the forehead as the man took in a deep breath. At this point Sasuke almost wanted to reach out and touch them.

"It seems that at this point you are quite convinced you are under some sort of genjutsu. I think this is a very healthy and normal assumption on your part. It's fine to remain under it a little longer, if you would like." A snort came from his left, but Sasuke was too busy counting the individual hairs on each caterpillar. "This is a lot to take in and you are being very mature about it. Though... I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. In any case, Uchiha-san wants to take you around the village and show you – well. Give you a tour. I just have one last thing to let you know about then. Have a look at your chest for me, if you please?"

Belatedly Sasuke realized he was being requested to do something. He tore his eyes away from the caterpillars and fixed them on his chest, bare where the hospital robes were starting to come undone. He blinked in surprise to see a distinctive black mark there.

"I'm sure you understand the situation, Sasuke-kun. Though as of now you don't seem to be any sort of a threat... the circumstances are just... in any case, it isn't a chakra seal, just a tracking device. It shouldn't interfere with any of your daily activities. We simply don't have the manpower to track you around the village, I'm afraid. Officially, of course, you will be under Uchiha-san's direct supervision."

Sasuke idly traced each petal of the chrysanthemum-like design with his finger. _Well, at least it's attractive_, he thought to himself, and was pleased with how calm the thought was.

"You'll see me again in a month or so. I'll give you another check-up to see how your health is coming along-- I have a regimen of pills here that should have you able to eat solid food in no time. Also, Uchiha-san has requested that I take another look at your left eye Sharingan. Again, I won't make any promises, but it's possible it can be made to function at some time in the future--"

"You became the head of this hospital three months ago, didn't you?" The older man's voice was cold and firm. "It should be well within your purview."

"I'm hardly the most talented to hold this title, Uchiha-san."

The pause was brief but oppressive. "You're the son of the Hokage. It's long past time you acted like it. Mikiru." A hand clapped down on Sasuke's shoulder, sending a shock wave crashing through his body-- he managed to bite down on the undignified sound trying to escape from his throat-- "Tell him the pill regimen quickly. Your other patients need you."

Instead, the man took Sasuke's hand in his, squeezing once. "Everything will be okay, Sasuke-kun," he said, giving that same kind smile.

Sasuke wished he wouldn't be kind. He really, _really_ wished he wouldn't be kind.

His older self reached down, knocked the hand away, to Sasuke's immense relief. "Stop wasting time and get to it. It's not a cancer diagnosis."

Mikiru turned away then, but not before giving Sasuke a sympathetic look that was strangely, eerily familiar. It was fortunate, really, Sasuke thought, that the Hyuuga eyes were designed to be inscrutable and distant, because at this point if Naruto's blue eyes or anything like them had been there, looking at him like that, at that moment he would probably have broken down and screamed and screamed and _screamed _like his entire world was going to pieces in front of his--

As the other man retrieved the pre-counted pills from the rolling cart behind him, Sasuke decided he wasn't going to think along those lines anymore for a while. In fact, he didn't really want to think at all for a while. The roaring whiteness expanding through every dark corner of his mind was, for once, his good and welcome friend.

* * *

A/N: FINALLY. 0_0 Sorry for the wait, everyone! I'm so grateful for all the reviews and alerts and favorites... I can't even tell you. I hope this chapter fills in some of the blanks - of course, there are many more mysteries to uncover! ^^

I guess the only thought I have for this chapter is that Sasuke is taking it quite well, really. I personally would be crying and vomiting in a corner. I'd like to believe ninjas are made of sterner stuff, though...

Feel free to speculate freely in the comment section, if you so desire ^_~


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